The Macallan urges whisky drinkers to 'Make the Call' in first global ad campaign
The Macallan has released its first-ever global advertising campaign spanning TV, cinema and digital centred on a 90-second video.
‘Make The Call’ sees the single malt Scotch whisky distillery reach out to markets as varied as the US, Mexico and China in a bid to entice a new generation of consumers.
Themed around 'bold decision making' the creative was devised by J Walter Thompson (at the time) adopted a fantastical visual metaphor to bring the production to life worldwide.
Its creative director Paul Rizzello, said: “The pressure of a big decision often makes us hesitate just when success is within reach. We’re so afraid of getting it wrong, we end up avoiding those decisions altogether. This story is about someone who decides to go for it. He makes the call.”
He expressed that the Macallan wanted to broaden its appeal beyond a niche group of whisky connoisseurs and embrace a whole new generation of luxury consumers. Rizzello pointed to successful 20- and 30-something men and women.
He said: "These people are faced with increasingly complex decisions and they don’t always know what choices to make, because they aren’t that experienced yet. The Macallan wanted to be a source of encouragement and inspiration to those people."
To reach this group, it has substantially upped digital spend. Rizzello said: "YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram are all key channels for the campaign. We are using a combination of film-trailer style short-form videos, Instagram stories, and in-feed video advertising, all driving through to themacallan.com, where people can watch the full film."
The work will land in the USA, Mexico, Taiwan, China and the UK. The creative has to thread through these markets seamlessly. He said: "Each market is indeed different, but we believe that our global audience are united by their ambition, intelligence and appreciation of the finer things in life. They don’t need advertising to spell everything out for them – that’s not the behaviour they’re used to seeing from luxury brands. They want to discover things for themselves. We are a global brand with a global point of view, which is about having the wisdom to spot the risk worth taking – and the bravery to follow it through."
The work sidesteps the ‘clichés of heather, leather and weather’. The agency, newly rebranded as Wunderman Thomson, said: "Hopefully it will be noticed for being different. The campaign itself was conceived very much in the spirit of the philosophy it espouses. Doing something that no one in the category has done before is a considered risk. It can feel daunting when you put yourself out on a limb like that, but if you’re brave enough to make the call and follow it through, the rewards are there for the taking.
"Hopefully our target audience will like the brand for daring to be different, and will appreciate being talked to in a way that recognises their intelligence, rather than defaulting to tried and tested tricks of the trade."
Paul Condron, global brand controller at The Macallan, added: “2018 has already been a momentous year for The Macallan, having opened our world-class new Distillery and Visitor Experience in June. We look forward to building on that and to seeing the reaction of audiences around the world to this fantastical tribute to people who make the call to choose a bigger life.”
The high-tech campaign boasts a number of innovative filming techniques including the first use of motion capture in a wind tunnel and 3D matte paintings created using VR headsets.