Waking the Sleeping Beauty: Chivas

Chivas is a brand that has an aging consumer, and without a strong marketing focus to bring in new, younger customers, sales diminished. So parent company Pernod Ricard has reinvested in Chivas, and last month began an integrated campaign to attract young men with a relatable theme that dates back to the day in 1801 when James and John Chivas

 laid down the first casks of the fine Scotch whiskey: brotherhood.

Enter UrbanDaddy.com, an online service for young urbanites that puts out a free daily email with information about events, nightlife, food, style, gear, leisure and other lifestyle activities in major urban hubs, including Atlanta, Boston, New York, Miami and Los Angeles. Chivas and UrbanDaddy.com are now partners in helping build each other’s brands under an integrated campaign called “The Chivas Brotherhood.”

At the UrbanDaddy.com home page a banner ad across the top of the site invites members to join “The Brotherhood.” The initial goal is to recruit between 700,000 and 900,000 members with a promotion that will morph into a long-term loyalty program. The theme surrounds bringing together brothers, groups of friends and old college buddies to offer them actives and events to go to together … and enjoy Chivas. Some of the activities include the ultimate Vegas trip complete with limos, a penthouse and VIP restaurant seatings, discounted seats to see Ben Stiller at the House of Blues and Chivas tastings.

“Our goal is to engage the people we recruit and keep them in the brand franchise,” said Laurent Cutier, senior brand manager for Chivas Regal, a Pernod Ricard brand. “We need to offer them something tangible, like high-access priority to events and being able to engage them more easily in the future.”

UrbanDaddy also promotes “The Brotherhood” on its Facebook page and Chivas has access to UrbanDaddy’s email list.

In addition to the marketing at UrbanDaddy.com, an extensive mobile promotion at retail is underway. Alcone Marketing Group designed and executed P-O-P materials with messaging about “The Chivas Brotherhood” that includes a SnapTag, created by technology company SpyderLynk. The logo-centric 2D barcode can be snapped and a short code texted in to register. An auto response requests an email address and date of birth. The new member then goes to ChivasBrotherhood.com where they update their profile and select a ci

ty of interest. (Another recent Snaptag promo involved the puzzling thriller “Inception”. That month-long barcode campaign last December led up to the DVD release and focused on offering content that might help people figure out the story’s main mystery.)

“By capturing their information and engaging with them at retail and at other touch points we can generate loyalty and allow them to bring the brand top of mind when the

y’re at shelf,” Allison Font, account executive at Alcone, said.

About 80% of mobile phone users have a phone that can snap a tag, Jane McPherson, the chief marketing officer at SpyderLynk, said.

A sweepstakes at ChivasBrother.com, administered by UrbanDaddy, adds another layer of interest offering a chance for the winner and three friends to travel to Scotland, the home of Chivas. Players submit an essay about their brotherhood. First prize is a trip for four to Miami and second prize awards a “grand dinner” for six. The sweeps ends May 22.

The overall campaign runs through June, and then in September as the “whiskey season” gets underway, Chivas will tap its new email database to begin a series of events that will continue through the holidays,” Cutier said.

At ChivasBrotherhood.com, the membership program is described as a place for, “Men willing to forsake all other things in the name of true friendship. Men who know when it’s time to spend quality time with the boys … Men who seek and conquer the finer things in life, as a group … These men belong to an elite group.”

Last year, Chivas launched a global consumer campaign on the importance of scotch whisky age statements. Chivas was one Pernod Ricard's Top 14 brands fiscal 2009/2010, reporting a 5% sales gain with volume up 4.2%, according to the firm's annual report.

“The brand is stabilizing,” Cutier said. “So it’s very encouraging.”