How We Advertised An Alcohol Brand’s ‘brewed to perfection’ Blends — Without Advertising Their Product!

Adul(tree) of Thoughts
From LBB
Published in
4 min readAug 4, 2020

With most parts of the country still in a lockdown, celebrating special occasions and events has been a virtual-only affair. What once used to be a closed gathering filled with laughter, hugs, food, best shared over their favorite alco-beverages, mostly gifted to the person(s) being celebrated — video calls fail to bring the old-world charm of sharing memories through stories.

On the occasion of Father’s Day, LBB collaborated with renowned alcohol brand Jim Beam to celebrate fathers and the special bond that children share with their first super heroes. Jim Beam wanted users to celebrate their Fathers everyday and share their special moments with the brand. The challenge? No communication could encourage drinking or use any alcohol images, making it difficult to directly advertise the brand and weave it with the ongoing Father’s Day celebrations across various brand categories.

Celebrating Bonds That Have #AgedToPerfection

Jim Beam wanted to promote their blends that are carefully aged over time — much like the relationships that we share with our fathers. Keeping this in mind, we spinned the campaign around celebrating our bonds with dads that have #AgedToPerfection. The aim was to get users to share their stories, special moments, Dad-jokes or their advice — any and every moment that has made their bond strong. There was no use of alcohol images in any of the social media promotions and generic father-child images were used to amplify the campaign. Alcohol gifting is quite popular on occasions like Father’s Day. However, considering that the brand didn’t want to directly promote consumption of alcohol, we stuck to the guidelines. We still received an overwhelming response from our users who poured their hearts into their submissions. From celebrating fathers for the little things to stories of how some of them made their dads’ dreams come true — it was a riot of cherished memories.

The Flavors

The campaign was divided into 2 phases: one that leveraged user generated stories and the other that relayed the campaign ideology of #AgedToPerfection, delivered through collaboration with influencers and tying up with Instagram to curate a customized filter.

Phase 1 focussed on how Jim Beam wanted users to not restrict Father’s Day celebrations to one single day, but cherishing this bond every day through user stories. The article was taken LIVE post the official date of Father’s Day to relay this thought. Phase 2 was dedicated to amplifying #AgedToPerfection with the help of influencer videos and a customized Instagram filter.

The Perfect Blend

In the first phase, we tapped into LBB’s web and app to reach out to our 4 million monthly users and encouraged them to share their special moments with their dads. The article did not promote drinking or gifting alcohol and no images of the alcohol were used to promote the same on social media.

In the second phase we tied up with influencers like Aparshakti Khurana and Karron S Dhingra, both of whom are known to share a great bond with their fathers. Aparshakti and Karron took Jim Beam India’s ‘Who Knows Whom Better’ challenge with their dads where they asked fun questions about each other to see if their bond has #AgedToPerfection. To further create a buzz, we designed a special Instagram filter called ‘Aged To Perfection’ where users could play this fun game with their dads, at home, just like the celebrities. This helped users to resonate with the campaign and make #AgedToPerfection synonymous with Jim Beam.

The Result

The campaign gathered over 5 million social media impressions with 60% audience being the brand’s target audience. The customized Instagram filter was an innovative approach in engaging with customers. The entire campaign was packaged in a manner that users — both who are with and away from their families, could share their special stories with us.

End note

Each campaign at LBB is designed keeping in mind the brand’s marketing requirements. Advertising in the times of a global pandemic can be tricky. Jim Beam wanted to execute a special Father’s Day campaign that ticked off all the elements that the product boasts of, without directly advertising the alcohol. At LBB, we are not only proud of a strong and loyal user base, but we also understand what will appeal to the masses. We are always excited to take up business and marketing challenges and provide the brand with a customized solution with no compromise on their brand guidelines. Facing a challenge in your marketing strategy? Partner with us here.

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