Kahlúa
Kahlúa is the key ingredient in some of the world’s most classic cocktails from the Espresso Martini, Mind Eraser, Frozen Mudslide, B52 and of course the White Russian. Its drinks have also played a role in popular culture including a wide variety of cult movies. But over recent years, the brand's cult status had slipped. Our brief was to make Kahlúa cool again, without significant above-the-line support (true to Pernod Ricard’s strategy of acting like a publisher, not an advertiser).
Our idea was to return to the brand’s cinematic heritage and launch a platform called “Kahlúa Productions”, creating content based on the enigmatic names of its cocktails. As its most iconic drink, “The White Russian” was the obvious choice to be our hero release. And what better person to star in the film, than Jeff Bridges (famous for drinking White Russians in cult hit The Big Lebowski)?
Our 4 minute “White Russian” film premiered in Hollywood at the end of September and received 2M online views in its first 2 weeks. It’s part of a much wider campaign spanning content (including backstage with Jeff Bridges and instructional cocktail mixing videos), social media, on-trade, off-trade, experiential and print – starting in the US, before rolling out globally. Online views have now reached 9M and the brand is seeing a sales uplift for the first time in a decade. While lots of brands talk about being content providers, to gain traction in today’s world, you need to be truly watchable.