The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Advertising

Maxxium unveils educational Courvoisier cognac campaign hedging on the curiosity of coffee drinking millennials

Author

By John McCarthy, Opinion Editor

September 27, 2017 | 4 min read

Cognac brand Courvoisier is about to embark on its biggest-ever marketing campaign as it looks to build bridges with what it perceives to be a lucrative growth sector in the resurgent UK coffee-drinking community.

Courvoisier

Courvoisier's new cafe culture creative

Owner Maxxium will at the start of October, kick off a marketing campaign it hopes will open an entirely new generation up to cognac, as it seeks growth in the sector to support its portfolio which includes Jim Bean, the Famous Grouse, Teacher's, Auchentoshan, Bowmore, Japanese Whiskies Hibiki, Yamazaki and Hakushu, Courvoisier cognac, Midori liqueurs and lip-smacking shot-filler, Sourz Apple.

Speaking to The Drum, Johna Penman, head of brands at Maxxium, revealed that the marketing campaign was devised to secure the future for the cognac brand, especially around younger people who may want an introduction to the liquor. To do this, Maxxium is reliant upon an integration into another flourishing product – coffee.

The coffee industry is projected to produce £8.9bn to the UK economy in 2017. In a seemingly short time, there has been an explosion in the number of UK independent coffee stores, and around this, a passionate community has formed. Penman said: “We were thinking about what Courvoisier pairs well with it, what brings it to life. With coffee we found something that similarly where the aromas and taste were equally important. Coffee is a big trend.

“Consumers are thinking about coffee in a very different way,” she added, referring to the fact that among the new cafes sprouting in UK high streets is a high-end market that cognac can integrate with. Further to this, cognac can be a vital component of cocktails like the express martini. To this end, Penman hopes to educate consumers and bars about the value in stocking Courvoisier. It’s a war of education to high-end groups drinking premium liquors, whiskey, malts and rums.

As of October, the new work goes live, representing what Maxxium claims is the largest investment in a cognac brand ever in the UK and marks a massive step change in marketing activity around Courvoisier. Much of the spend will be dropped into out of home advertising, targeted to night life hotspots where cognac drinkers are likely to be. Notably, Penman claimed 45% of all spirits advertising goes into OOH, showing the medium’s importance and relevance to the sector. There is an intent to reach eight million people with the drive as Maxxium shows confidence in the sector’s potential to grow.

Also continuing this war of education, the brand is continuing its collaboration with brand ambassador Rebecca Asseline who “brings to life the magic of Courvosier” in videos, showing interested parties how best to use the two-century old cognac. Accompanying this drive digitally with be a Café Courvoirier where definitive brews and cocktails will be housed.

On how the upcoming work differs from what has come before she stated: “We had a strong identity for the brand, but for consumer and customers, we had to tell them what to do with it and give them something more.”

In short, the cognac brand is looking to educate users when cognac is a relevant tipple (a tactic recently adopted by Domino’s Pizza although its answer was essentially ‘always’) to a generation who may not have yet introduced it to the tastebuds.

Advertising

More from Advertising

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +