Sun, Oct 05, 2003 page12

• Whiskies reform image as times become sober

  As the children of baby boomers turn 21 in America, Chivas Regal and Johnnie Walker realize they need to change their tune and sell less frivolity and fantasy

  • NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
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  For the marketers of two big brands of Scotch whiskey, Chivas Regal and Johnnie Walker, it was back to the drawing board -- again. Both have discarded advertising they had introduced only recently in favor of significantly re-tooled campaigns.

  One reason for the changes, in campaigns with combined budgets estimated at more than US$25 million, was a switch in strategy for selling Scotch. Rather than remaining focused on stimulating demand among consumers who do not already drink Scotch, the campaigns now getting under way concentrate on wooing consumers who already do, particularly aficionados of the pricier single-malt Scotches.

  Also a factor was the need to remain competitive in the clamorous liquor market. Brands like Bacardi rum, Tanqueray gin and Finlandia and Stolichnaya vodka are all changing their marketing approaches by bringing out revamped ads.

  Sales of Scotch whiskey and other "brown goods," so named for their color, had declined for decades as younger drinkers gravitated to "white" spirits like vodka and gin. But "it looks like Scotch has bottomed out," said Frank C. Walters, senior vice president and research director at M. Shanken Communications in New York, who oversees the company's annual report on liquor brand performance, known as Impact's Spirits Study.

  "It's a good idea," Walters said of the decision to change campaigns for Chivas Regal and Johnnie Walker, because the ranks of younger drinkers, growing as the children of baby boomers reach 21, are "drinking better." That is a reference to the propensity to buy higher-priced distilled spirits like single-malt Scotches and super-premium vodkas.

  "Why shouldn't they get a piece of that action?" Walters asked, referring to the marketers of the two brands.

  Chivas Regal, sold by the Pernod Ricard USA division of Pernod Ricard, is the No. 4 brand of Scotch whiskey in the US, according to Impact's Spirits Study. Case shipments were flat last year when compared with 2001 after falling in 2001 from 2000.

  Johnnie Walker is sold by Schieffelin & Somerset, a venture of Diageo and LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. The Johnnie Walker Red Label brand is No. 2, according to Impact's Spirits Study, and the Johnnie Walker Black Label brand is No. 3. Red Label case shipments fell slightly last year from 2001 and in 2001 from 2000, but Black Label enjoyed robust gains in the two-year period. (The best-selling brand by far in the US is Dewar's, marketed by Bacardi.)

  Drinking life in

  Chivas has changed campaigns frequently in the last 20 years. The most recent ads, since 1999, carried the theme "When you know," replacing a campaign that had run since 1995 that carried the theme "You either have it or you don't." The new ads, in English and Spanish, with a budget estimated at more than US$10 million, carry the theme "This is the Chivas life," in print, outdoors and on television.

  "There's always a huge temptation" to pursue drinkers who have not developed a taste for Scotch, said Chris Willis, vice president for marketing for Chivas Regal at Pernod Ricard USA in White Plains, New York. "But you can go a little too far, losing some of your roots and heritage."

  "I think we did walk away from some of our core brand values," he added, and realize that it would be better to "take a line of much less resistance, because we have more chance growing the brand by taking share from other whiskeys than stealing share from white spirits."

  While the "When you know" ads were centered on wry comments about lifestyles -- like digs at people who keep pampered poodles as pets -- the new campaign offers paeans to the trappings of la vida Chivas that re-emphasize the brand name to play up its associations with the luxe life. For instance, ads celebrate going ice fishing in an Alaskan glacier field rather than a local pond "crossing the room like you own it" at a hot club and sailing away with friends after you "throw a dart at a map of the world and go where it lands."

  Brand Architecture International in New York created the Chivas Regal campaign in North and South America for G1 Worldwide, a division of the TBWA Worldwide unit of the Omnicom Group.

  The campaign is "part reinforcement of our existing franchise, to get our fair share of whiskey drinkers, and part recruitment" of newcomers to whiskey, said Adam Stagliano, president and founding director at Brand Architecture.

  "We still want to reach out and bring new people into the franchise," Stagliano added, "but we're not just saying we're a great liquor brand, as `When you know' did. We're doing it in a way that says we're a great whiskey."

  Making strides

  The new campaign for Johnnie Walker reworks ads that were introduced in January 2001, which carried the theme "Keep walking." The theme remains, as does a role for the venerable character known as the Striding Man.

  What is different in the new print and outdoor ads for Johnnie Walker, with a budget estimated at US$15 million, is a significant scaling back of the outsized point of view of the previous campaign, which suggested that the life of a Johnnie Walker drinker was, with apologies to Cole Porter, a trip to the moon on whiskey wings.

  Gone are ads that honored gazillion-dollar ideas like inventing the online bookstore, the gourmet coffee chain and snowboarding. In their place are less grandiose stories that include elements of frustration and even failure.

  For instance, one print ad shows a successful music producer whose past careers are listed as "terrible guitarist, incompetent drummer, laughable lead singer." Another ad shows a man whose "perfect job" is as a nature guide. And a billboard shows the Striding Man navigating a fever chart, reminiscent of recent stock-market performance, with jagged peaks, deep valleys and a final slight upturn.

  "We wanted to hook into a universal human truth about leading a successful life, progress, moving forward," said Richard Nichols, product group director for Johnnie Walker at Schieffelin & Somerset in New York. "The ads showed what progress meant at the time of the dot-com boom."

  "After sitting down with people to get insights into how they live life today, we found they see it as a journey, with good moments and bad," he added. "And now the Striding Man is a symbol people can say `moves forward with me on my journey.'"

  The Johnnie Walker campaign was created by the New York office of Bartle Bogle Hegarty. Aiming the ads at the customers Johnnie Walker already has, said William Gelner, group creative director at Bartle Bogle, can "help them become brand zealots who can do a lot of the heavy lifting with people who aren't."

  As for the altered approach, "success is now the sum of the obstacles you overcome, the fears you face, the lucky accidents along the way," Gelner said.

  "The original campaign was based on an attitude that went along with overnight, 24-year-old millionaires," he added. "We're living in a much different age, a much more sober time."

  Pun intended?
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