By Amy Looker, editor National Liquor News

Canadian Club has launched the latest installment of its successful ‘Over Beer?’ campaign, putting the focus firmly on the brand’s refreshment factor.

The next phase of the campaign, ‘A Refreshing Wake Up Call’, includes two TVCs which take place in traditional beer drinking environments and likens Canadian Club to 'a snowball in the face from a sexy person'.

In a first for the brand, the new campaign (see video below) features a female lead in the TVC which Beam Global marketing director Trent Chapman told TheShout was a natural step given the uptake of females drinking Canadian Club.

“By nature, dark spirits appeal to and are skewed towards males so we thought it would be a brave step to have a female as the lead talent," he said.

"The brand is somewhat androgynous, women are drinking it but nothing like how men are – we have an 80 per cent male skew."

"But with CC versus a lot of other dark spirits, you've got men that are happy to drink it in the company of women. For that reason we’ve used a female lead talent and from a creative standpoint, a female being hit in the face with a snowball has more impact than a male,” Chapman said.

“We know consumers are evolving and the days of blokey drinking occasions are diminishing. You need brands that can be enjoyed by both men and women. Categories are so blurred across beer, cider, pre-mix and wine, so to have a non-traditional dark spirit is a beautiful position to be in.”

Chapman said that Canadian Club has experienced phenomenal growth since the launch of its ‘Over Beer?’ campaign three years ago.

“We’ve made an effort for three years to position CC as an alternative to beer and to complement Jim Beam, which is the biggest brand in spirits and RTDs, so it didn’t make sense to have them fight for the same territory,” Chapman said. 

“We spent a lot of time positioning it differently and this campaign is the first step to really highlighting how good the liquid is, which is one of the best things it has going for it – it’s really easy drinking and it’s versatile. We’ve grown 30 per cent year on year in the last three years and CC sits number four behind Jim Beam, Jack and Bundy.”

According to Chapman, the best result for Canadian Club is the number of new drinkers it has been attracting to the category. 

“The big thing for us is our Roy Morgan measure of different drinkers and in terms of out-of-category prospects, which are non-spirit and pre-mix drinkers, we’ve grown from 12 per cent of new drinkers to 60 per cent," he said.

"So we’re truly bringing new drinkers into the spirits and RTD category, which is a really good thing to do considering the challenges around pricing that pre-mix has versus beer.”

Chapman also said that Canadian Club’s presence in on-premise venues was a major factor in driving growth.

“We’ve got 500 outlets on tap which is just an amazing success. It was never a volume driving initiative, it was as much about marketing, but having CC on tap really positions it as an alternative to beer as it’s front and centre at the bar, driving awareness and trial.”

The ‘A Refreshing Wake Up Call’ campaign launched yesterday and can be seen across a variety of mediums including digital, out of home and radio, while also being promoted on a limited edition 24-pack cube. 

The Shout Team

The leading online news service for Australia's beer, wine, spirits and hospitality industries.

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