The agency develops a Facebook marketing initiative at Christmas, to present Ardbeg as the perfect whiskey gift, highlighting the rich history of the product. Sandro Marchetti, CEO of IAKI, describes this project.
Where does this initiative come from?
We decided to take a chance created by a thought that occured to us: with its prestige, its taste and its history, Ardbeg is the perfect Christmas gift. So we set an agile initiative, that did not require large investments but did consolidate the aim of making this product known to a wider audience.
What is in this initiative that distinguishes Ardbeg from many other whiskeys with a similar positioning?
True, many whiskeys have a privileged relationship with the holidays, and in some cases they even design packaging that look like gift packs. Anyway Ardbeg is different from all the others: it is the only conversational whiskey.
How did you get to this positioning?
We started from the study of human behavior. During the holidays it is truly a tradition to bring a fine whiskey gift to the landlord. But it is equally true that under the circumstances we live always an awkward moment, when exchanging a gift that is formal and aloof. On the contrary, Ardbeg is a whiskey with so intriguing a story that you don’t only present the bottle, but also a short story: it is a topic of conversation that allows you to overcome that moment of embarrassment and formality.
What is this project of Facebook marketing all about?
The idea is so strong that a very simple realization has been enough: a Facebook advertising campaign which proposed Ardbeg as the gift idea for the holidays and an impactful landing tab. The adv in fact landed on a page with some rules for the best way to present yourself if you are giving a whiskey. The page had both a copy and and art direction that winked to the manuals of conversation and style of the good old times, with a winking irony typical of Ardbeg.
What’ve been the results?
The operation has been a success: the banners showed the best performance ever on the Italian page, with a conversion rate in the early days that even exceeded the 50% threshold. The page has been literally animated by new visitors, including young people impressed by the freshness of the language and the irony of the rules tab. This message has been so strong that we decided to relaunch it after the holidays, developing the editorial theme of conversations around a good whiskey.