What makes consumers respond to an
ad? Is it the copy? The image? Or is it the feeling these two factors together
give them? This applies just the same in the whiskey industry as it does in any
other. It begs the question, does it
benefit distillers more to outsource the creation of their advertisements to
the professionals in agencies, or to keep it in-house with the people who know
the product best? Let’s look at two of the most familiar names in Kentucky
Bourbon and their approach to advertising: Maker’s Mark and Evan Williams.
Maker’s is considered by many to be
a premiere brand of American whiskey, and the same can be said about their
advertising. For example:
Doe-Anderson, an agency based in
Louisville, has been handling the Maker’s Mark account for over 40 years. In
this time, they have taken one of the most distinguishable things about the
product (its packaging) and built countless campaigns around it, focusing many of
them on the iconic red wax each bottle is dipped in. Many ads like this one
focus on the projection of class and the “Southern gentleman” mentality that
top-shelf bourbon is so often associated with. The agency has taken decades to use
just as much care in crafting their relationship with the consumer as the
distillers do in crafting their bourbon.
One of the benefits of keeping ad
work in-house is that the people involved in making the campaign have only one
product to focus on. In the case of Evan Williams, the folks at Heaven Hill
Distilleries know the product because it is not only their star account, but
one of their only accounts. They know Evan Williams is seen as a more
blue-collar brand known for its “Southern grit,” and should be marketed and
priced as such (at around $10-$15 per bottle, this is still one of the better
budget bourbons.) However, much like Maker’s Mark, their advertisers do an
excellent jo
b of incorporating the brand’s reputation into the campaign they
rolled out in 2013.
Evan Williams’ campaign provides a
simple tagline for a simple man’s bourbon. It’s a perfect fit for the product, but
I would put the campaign at “seriously sufficient” before I put it at
“seriously good.”
So which approach is better? Both have their
benefits, but here I have to give the advantage to Doe-Anderson and Maker’s
Mark in this particular comparison. The professionals at Doe-Anderson do a
great job of intriguing both the validation impulse of being a classy person
drinking a classy whiskey, and the affinity impulse of belonging to an
exclusive group of gentlemen while still delivering a tagline that packs a
90-proof punch. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think it’s time to go pour myself a
splash.
