In recent years, spirits aficionados have turned their attention to whisky. There are tasting nights for whisky fans and special glasses and whisky stones designed to elevate the liquor’s taste.
But, for many drinkers, the new pomp and circumstance surrounding the liquor is a little overblown. In its new campaign, J.P. Wisers Canada steers its brand away from whisky connoisseurs in favour of appealing to the average joe.
The brand’s new TV spot, by John St., pokes fun at the current pageantry around whisky by showing two gruff, bearded young men canoeing towards a remote iceberg to hand chip ice that will pair well with their whisky. It ends with a message: “All you need to enjoy whisky is great whisky.”
Laura Bruce, senior brand manager for Corby Spirit and Wine, said J.P. Wisers spent a year and a half researching its customer and where the brand fits into the market before crafting the campaign. What the brand’s marketing team found, Bruce said, is its core customer doesn’t care about taste notes or the perfect way to serve a drink. All they want is a good whisky without the frills.
Those findings became the crux of the campaign, including its equally no-frills tagline, “Tastes Like Whisky.”
“What we’re really saying, which we feel is going to connect with who our consumer is, is, ‘You don’t need all that. All you need is good whisky to enjoy your whisky,'”Bruce said.
This is the second phase of a campaign J.P. Wisers launched last fall. The brand has been on a mission to re-position itself and earn a re-appraisal from its core target of 25 to 34-year-old males. While J.P. Wisers is a mass brand, Bruce said pre-campaign research showed it scored lower than other big labels in awareness and lacked a strong perception.
The company is now trying create stronger affinity by reaching out to the middle of the market and letting them know J.P. Wisers is an unpretentious option.
“It’s all about trying to figure out where your bullseye target is,” said Melissa Tobenstein, the John St. team leader on the J.P. Wisers account. The whisky-drinkers the brand is after, Tobenstein said, are “down-to-earth people who are having their social gatherings at their homes, getting together with friends for sports games or backyard BBQs and enjoying the real things in life.”
With that in mind, the brand used the Toronto Blue Jays home opener as the launching pad for the campaign. The national TV buy, handled by Media Experts, is focused on live sports. The ad will run through summer during Blue Jays and Toronto Raptors games as well as wrap-up clips on both TSN and Sportsnet. The brand is also running pre-roll ads on digital via a programmatic buy.
Bruce said the brand planned to extend the campaign into fall with a new phase that would build on the no-frills positioning.
