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Cannes Lions Bacardi Citizen

Content distribution can be innovative, claims Bacardi's global comms chief Lisa Jedan

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By Stephen Lepitak, -

June 21, 2015 | 3 min read

"Distribution is another place that you can innovate" said Bacardi's global director, brand PR and corporate communications, Lisa Jedan while talking about the company's creation of a graphic novel telling the history of the brand.

Speaking at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity alongside Tom Winterton, director of Citizen about the creation of the graphic novel; The Sprit of Bacardi, Jeden discussed the stages of creating the publication which told the back story to Bacardi.

The graphic novel was created by industry stalwarts Warren Ellis and Michael Allred.

Jeden explained that the company partnered with Vice and used 30 panels from the novel, partnering with the Blogger network, giving each blogger a page exclusively and then hyperlinked them which connected the pages across each blog.

"We also spend time thinking about where a 20-something-year led guy consumed this material. If we couldn't put it on a smartphone or tablet then there was just no point," continued Jedan.

"Of course we put it on Bacardi.com but we're age limited so we get tons of drop-off so if that was the only place the put it we were really going to be missing it out. Putting it on your own channels is hygiene."

A limited number of hard copies were also sent to media and influencers and online.

Winterton said, from a PR perspective, the best strategy when it came to brand storytelling was to see others tell the story for the brand, which could be done by making every element of a campaign as newsworthy as possible.

"That is why we explored a relatively untapped medium and why we brought together two heavyweights in that world for the first time," he added.

Jedan revealed that the novel was downloaded 50,000 times online through Bacardi.com, with a reach of around 700 million.

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