We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: all American’s are Anglophiles. Rightly or wrongly, being able to confer a sense of Englishness on a product has connotations of something cultivated, distinguished and subtly superior. The latest print advertising from drinks manufacturer Pernod Ricard for its Beefeater Gin brand is a case in point. Developed in conjunction with publishers savvy to changing conditions in the advertising market, the result is a brilliant execution of how to tap into the brand’s heritage and America's Anglophilia.
The example pictured here runs across four full pages in the current issue of Men’s Journal, a US lifestyle magazine aimed at men aged eighteen to thirty-five. If you think that’s impressive, in the previous month’s edition Beefeater ran a ten page feature! This goes well beyond traditional advertorial and is an example of a new wave of highly targeted, content led advertising termed “branded content”.
Developing effective branded content is difficult. Brand messages need to be artfully woven into material that readers, listeners or viewers will actually want to consume. This particular execution does a great job because it relates to the interests of its audience (active lifestyle, desirable foreign culture), communicates the brand’s history and individuality in a modern and relevant way (the only gin still distilled in London linked to the uniqueness of the personalities profiled in the feature), delivers innovative and socially applicable ideas for product usage (a gin Bloody Mary anyone?) and has a contest to generate buzz.
What’s intriguingly smart is why Pernod Ricard has selected Beefeater for its branded content experiment. Acquired by the company only a year ago, the brand is middle market and does not have an especially strong profile. It looks like an attempt to develop Beefeater into a fashionable brand. Assuming we're right, focusing on its key attributes and communicating them in a lifestyle compatible format to a group comprised of educated early adopters and trend setters is very shrewd.
If Beefeater gains traction with this advertising, expect more branded content from this and other Pernod Ricard brands. And if hip target audiences show lasting preferences as a result, expect this approach to quickly spread to other brands, and other markets.
Read the full Beefeater ad: Download 003_beefeaterad.pdf
