Black Bottle

How do you launch a premium range that makes a dent with discerning tastemakers?

Premium beverage brand launch:

Black Bottle needed to launch a new premium range, The Alchemy Series, which used groundbreaking new cask styles. The 140 year old brand needed to fast-track their innovation credentials with a 20M taste-maker audience, in order to drive intrigue, and then sell enough to ensure the future of the range. For this audience, a traditional whisky campaign wouldn’t work. We needed something that could surprise even the most hardcore whisky geeks, and something that would spread across different whisky media.

We partnered with experiential psychologist Charles Spence to create The Taste Experiment, where 'sonic seasoning’, colours, shapes, visuals and sounds would transform how a whisky tastes in the glass. The Taste Experiment platform launched into 13 countries across UK, Europe, and Asia, as both live tastings, and ones that could be done at home.

Results:

The campaign generated 61M+ reach with 100% positive sentiment and exceeded year one sales targets inside the first 6 months, it was featured on the world’s biggest whisky podcast, and was even released as an album on Spotify.

The Alchemy Series has gone on to become a permanent part of the Black Bottle portfolio, with new expressions added each year. The magic is here to stay.