With a budget less than a quarter of its biggest competitor, Shackleton Whisky set ambitious objectives. The first was to become the fastest growing brand in the contemporary spirit category by driving awareness within their core target audience. The second was to position themselves as the whisky for adventurous modern spirits drinkers. This was going to be no easy feat, but Sky Media had the answer – National Geographic.
Research showed there was a gap in the market for a whisky brand to align with an adventurous target audience, and coupled with the knowledge that viewers sometimes tend to be more interested in the image of the brand rather than the merits of the product, we wanted to build a campaign around the core emotive theme of adventure.
The strategy for developing Shackleton Whisky’s brand story was all about chasing the BIG adventure. A creative idea was developed, with the consumer-facing line of ‘Born Adventurous’. The creative execution would conceptualise the authenticity of Shackleton Whisky to operate in this never-before trodden space. Adventure is rooted in the heritage of Shackleton, so they needed a big, exciting, modern platform to build purpose and earn a place in the modern spirit drinkers’ lives of today.
Aligning with a respected and credible brand such as National Geographic gave Shackleton the voice to tell their story and increase authority in the market. The sponsorship idea would provide the ‘rub’ effect from National Geographic’s trusted credentials onto the Shackleton brand. It was also planned to deliver a frequency of messaging amongst the core audience, providing the perception of a large-scale TV campaign.
To launch the campaign, we negotiated a social post from the National Geographic Facebook page to reinforce the partnership between both brands. A 3-month linear sponsorship on National Geographic was negotiated. Additionally, after identifying that 1/3 of National Geographic viewers also watched Nat Geo’s sister channel National Geographic Wild, it included a further 200 hours of linear programme sponsorship on this channel too. Further activation included the creation of a hub, digital brand banners, a social post to launch the partnership and the production of TV idents.
National Geographic not only created a hub to the Shackleton story, but also cost-effectively produced the idents with minimal assets. National Geographic display banners hosted on their website also drove users to the hub to discover more about the founder of Shackleton Whisky, Sir Ernest Shackleton. The campaign ran from September 2019 – December 2019, capturing consumer behaviour trends in alcohol consumption and benefiting from the increased linear TV viewing across the winter months.
Hotter and Sky Media
