However, two other flavored malts, Sauza Diablo and Stolichnaya Citrona, will, for the time being, end their national campaigns.
"Before we return to national advertising, we're focusing on retail initiatives and trade promotion," said Molly Reilly, a spokeswoman for Miller in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
"We're looking on gaining distribution," she added, "blocking and tackling to get more space at retail" for the two brands. The Sauza Diablo ads had been created by dRush in New York, a joint venture of the Deutsch division of Interpublic and the musical impresario Russell Simmons, which last week announced its closing. The agency for Stolichnaya Citrona is the Chicago office of BBDO Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group.
As for labeling the products flops as Pecoriello did, Reilly said: "It's very early days to count on the success of brands that were launched just this summer. What we do know is that Stolichnaya Citrona and Sauza Diablo showed great promise in consumer taste tests."
Jack ads
Ads for the Jack Daniel's malternative, which Miller sells with the Brown-Forman Corp, will continue as scheduled. They are being created by the St. Louis office of Arnold Worldwide, part of the Arnold Worldwide Partners division of Havas, which also creates campaigns for the Jack Daniel's liquor brand.
Miller is planning additional commercials, print ads and outdoor advertising for Skyy Blue, Reilly said, which "is doing tremendously." The agency for Skyy Blue is Lambesis in Carlsbad, California, which is also the agency for Skyy vodka.
Gary Galanis, a spokesman for Diageo North America in Stamford, Conn., said the company planned no advertising changes for Smirnoff Ice, which set the malternative market in motion.
As for the castigation of how Captain Morgan Gold is faring, Galanis said: "I think a lot of people looked at the launch of Captain Morgan Gold as if it would be exactly like the launch of Smirnoff Ice, which was a phenomenal launch. People may have had similar expectations, and maybe we did as well."
The agency for Smirnoff Ice is the New York office of J. Walter Thompson, part of the WPP Group, and the agency for Captain Morgan Gold is Grey Worldwide in New York, part of the Grey Global Group.
One reason companies like Diageo like the category is because it affords entry into the malt-beverage market with liquor-brand names like Captain Morgan and Smirnoff. Rules for advertising beer and other malt beverages are not as strict as those for distilled spirits; for instance, national broadcast TV networks will accept commercials for malternatives but not for liquor.
Kentucky and Tennessee, under their regulation of alcoholic beverages, are considering whether alcopops ought to be classified along with distilled spirits. That would limit where they could be sold and how they could be advertised.
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