Zacapa UK Launch
ODD began working with Diageo in 2008, specifically to launch their new rum brand, Zacapa.
Ambition
In 2008 Diageo acquired the license to distribute and market a truly exceptional Guatemalan rum – Zacapa. The history and heritage behind the brand is as amazing as the product experience and Diageo wanted to bring the brand and product to life globally through retail, online, brand experience and PR.
The ODD Solution
Aimed primarily at affluent male consumers seeking quality in all aspects of their lives, we knew our target audience put a huge amount of importance on ‘discovering’ the new and unique, via traditional and non-traditional media. The communications therefore needed to encourage these notions of personal discovery, knowledge-growth and experience, as apposed to heavily advertised messages.
We created brand ‘discovery kits’ that told the most important aspects of the story, but just enough to inspire further conversation and discovery between bartenders, consumers, friends. We designed a global duty free solution to tell ‘mini-stories’ at retail level, across luxurious but under-stated POS materials. Experiential sampling activity educated consumers about serving Zacapa neat or on the rocks, rather than with a mixer.
Early digital activity focused on growing the brand story and product awareness among key online influencers and through digital buzz; while an integrated campaign saw a luxury direct mail piece sent to hundreds of bloggers – each contained samples of the rum at different ages and formed part of an exclusive live online tasting session with Lorena Vasquez, the original master blender of Zacapa.
Beautiful Effectiveness
We worked closely with Diageo over 4 years to create rich, authentic and engaging experiences for Zacapa across multiple channels and media, which led to Diageo taking a controlling stake and the brand enjoying 525% uplift in volume sales over that period.
- 525% uplift in volume sales