NYU STERN / PROJECTS / SCOTCH



REPOSITIONING LUXURY SCOTCH



Envisioning The Future Of Luxury Single Malt In North America



This technology-focused, multi-channel, marketing campaign for a heritage scotch brand proposes blockchain, AI-enabled retail, and cross-industry collaborations aimed towards attracting the modern North American luxury consumers.



All imagery, numerical data & brand names have been changed/excluded as per the NDA to retain the confidentiality of the client



Brief:





  1. What can a scotch brand learn from different industries that had to embrace a DTC strategy during last year’s pandemic?

  2. What are the prevalent types of technologies that are emerging in other industries and that you can envision reshaping the experience and experience between brand and consumer?

  3. How can some of these become the leverage for a luxury brand that is still distributed through the traditional wines and spirits network?


An understanding of the market starts with an understanding of the consumer. Based on the brand's goals, target profiles were developed to signal aspirations, and behavioral drivers for their clients that would help further detail the best approach to achieve the campaign goals.



Since the goal of the brand was to reposition itself in a way that will allow the brand to keep its heritage while appealing to a more fashionable, younger consumer, based on the understanding of the new target demographic, it is recommended that the brand move from the Current: (Wabi-sabi + Classic) to the Preferred: (Wabi-sabi + Postmodern)



THE THREE STAGE APPROACH:



Based on the ideas and technologies researched, a multi-step, phased brand activation strategy was devised to promote the Modern Scotch to the new consumer.




EXCITE - EDUCATE - EXPERIENCE:



This campaign develops in three stages. Excite, Educate and Experience. For the new post-modern consumers, programs that build excitement for the brand as a disruptive heritage label are envisioned. Leveraging this new interest, clients are further accompanied into the Educate phase where they are immersed in Scottish culture through innovative digital touchpoints. Finally, as the clients evolve into a Wabi-Sabi consumer, multi-sensory experiences for a post pandemic world are proposed.



As step one, exploring a brand partnership with a leading designer label to create a highly limited edition, capsule collection, of co-branded resort wear, inspired by the ideologies of the brand is proposed. This digital-only exclusive line will provide the brand opportunities to push the boundaries of marketing, without diluting the brand’s core values and simultaneously create an aura of desirability through rarity and associations.




In keeping with the origins of scotch, the suggestion for this collaboration is to partner with a Scottish designer such as Christopher Kane whose eponymous brand now under the Kering portfolio could be suitable for the brand. As the face of this collaboration and NOT THE BRAND ITSELF, actress Anya Taylor Joy, who has Scottish ancestry and is enjoying her success & recent award-winning performances, is recommended. A millennial female role model as the extended ambassador for a scotch brand further opens the market of scotch to women and retains desirability for men. If Brad Pitt can be the face of Chanel No. 5, there is definitely room to bend the rules.




Building on the personalization of the experience, clients can opt to add their personal signature to the scotch bottles through engravings, and gift custom flasks & leather cases.


So where does technology and DTC fit in? It is in the choice of the exclusive E-Retail partner. Step Two is positioning the brand as being an industry disruptor by presenting Fashion in the realm of e-Spirits. This special collaboration will be only available on a curated online store on a DTC e-spirits platform and on the brand's parent website. This creates a bridge between our fashion & lifestyle consumers bringing them to a channel presumably untapped so far. The E-spirits platform would be home to the accessible collections of the collaboration and the under $200 flight whereas the brand's webstore would be home to the prestige selections.



Marquee events attended by the Post-Modern clients and the influencers they follow become the third phase of this collaboration and maximize the Excite aspect of the activation.

  • Attendance by the Collaboration Brand Ambassador, Product placements, and sponsorships create subliminal awareness through indirect association.
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  • Generated media about the event, its participants, and their brands, broadcasted through streaming services help the brand communicate with the non-clients, an essential element of the audience who by correlating the brand with the attendees, push the brand unto the tier of absolute aspirationality.


Blockchain is introduced here as the foundation of creating a trustworthy, and verifiable infrastructure to build the educational campaign on. Blockchain in essence allows users to record and track every stage of the rarified production process, from the sourcing of the raw materials for the brand and the collaboration, through the distillation over decades in Scotland and finally via the distribution and eventual acquisition of the flight and collections in the hands of the consumer. It brings control of content back to the brand while facilitating greater and more transparent communication between the creators and the consumers.


Each step of the process becomes an opportunity to educate the clients through using distinct digital channels such as the brand's website for first-hand knowledge, VR content for the Occulus they now own through the collaboration, and podcasts by industry experts.



There are plenty of ways to engage with the brand around the brand story, information on each whisky, how to drink whisky, food/cigar pairings, etc. Through this exercise, we identified emerging technologies and new consumer behavior/lifestyles that have led the brand to other, comparable ways of engagement.


For the complete presentation and concept, please feel free to reach out to me and we can discuss the idea and our approach in more depth.


© SAMYAK JAIN | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED