Top drinks marketing campaigns and news: February

David Beckham’s Haig Club named whisky of Inter Miami

Haig Club Clubman, the single grain Scotch co-owned by David Beckham and Diageo, has been named as the official whisky of football club Inter Miami. Major League Soccer’s newest club, Inter Miami, is part-owned by Beckham, and played its first match against LAFC on Sunday.

“Launching Inter Miami CF this year is a proud moment for me and to have Haig Club be a part of that is really special. I can’t wait to see people enjoying Haig Club in Miami,” Beckham said.

Haig Club and Inter Miami CF will officially kick off their partnership on 14 March  when Inter Miami takes on the LA Galaxy at its Fort Lauderdale stadium.

John Cooper-Clarke cantillates for Kraken Valentine’s Day comp

Rum brand Kraken recruited British punk poet John Cooper Clarke to encourage consumers to enter a competition to win a limited edition, pitch black rum bottle in time for Valentine’s Day this year.

Best known as the Bard of Salford, Clarke’s poetry collection The Luckiest Guy Alive was published by Macmillan in 2018.

Kraken asked Clarke to create a ballad of his own, called Nine Line Valentine, and encourage people to enter a poetry competition to win a limited edition bottle of rum.

The winners of the competition were handed their prizes by Kraken’s branded “milk floats” on Friday 14 February in London and Glasgow.

Hennessy Cognac secures first partnership with NBA

Hennessy has secured a multi-year sponsorship that makes the Cognac brand the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) official spirit partner . The deal means that Hennessy, part of luxury goods group LVMH, will become the official spirit of the NBA, Women’s National Basketball Association and USA Basketball.

It is the first time Hennessy has partnered with a professional sports league in North America.

The brand took over from Jack Daniel’s, the NBA’s current partner, last month. Dan Rossomondo, NBA senior vice-president of media and business development, said the partnership provides both groups with “an exciting opportunity to reach and engage with a broader segment of basketball fans around the NBA’s marquee moments”.

Hennessy kicked off the partnership during All-Star Weekend, and served as an associate partner of the NBA Celebrity Game presented by Ruffles, as well as becoming a presenting partner of the pre-game red carpet. As part of the deal, Hennessy will provide access to games, players and cultural events.

Hennessy’s sales have been growing over the past year, which has helped to boost luxury goods giant LVMH’s revenues. Wine and spirits helped the company, which also owns Krug and Château d’Yquem, report organic sales growth of 6%, to reach €2.48 billion (£2.11bn) in the first half of 2019.

Thornbridge makes ‘only legitimate’ Peaky Blinders beer

(Photo: Thornbridge)

UK brewer Thornbridge has brewed the first official beer for British TV series Peaky Blinders. Thornbridge in Derbyshire partnered with Endemol Shine Group and Caryn Mandabach Productions to brew the 5% IPA, called Shelby. It is inspired by beer styles that would have been around in 1919, when the show is set.

The beer launched at the Colmore in Birmingham on 20 February, and will also be available to buy in bottles from this month. Peaky Blinders charts the lives of a fictional crime family, the Shelbys, operating in Birmingham just after World War I.

It is loosely based on a real youth gang, the Peaky Blinders, operating during the same period.

The beer already has fierce competition in the Midlands. Sadler’s Ales, based in Lye, Stourbridge, has produced a Peaky Blinder beer range since 2014, and launched a Peaky Blinder spirits range in the same vein in 2017. While it isn’t the first beer inspired by the Blinders, it is the “only legitimate” one inspired by the Peaky Blinders series of BBC and Netflix fame, Steve Knight, the show’s creator, said.

Susan Waddell, commercial director at Caryn Mandabach Productions, said: “We have always wanted to find the right partner for a legitimate beer inspired by the series. “Thornbridge is that partner as the brewery is truly passionate about the product that it is creating – an authentic beer capturing the essence of the world of Peaky Blinders.”

Brewdog rebrands

Nearly 15 years after launching its first IPA, BrewDog has reworked its packaging and is asking drinkers to return old cans for shares. BrewDog’s branding will be pared back as part of a “new dawn” for the brewer’s image, co-founder and owner, James Watt said.

The new cans feature a shield design and a smaller version of the brewer’s signature dog logo, and the words “brewed in Ellon”, with reference to the Aberdeenshire brewery.

The labels will be updated for markets that are brewing their own versions of the beer, such as the US and Australia, according to a BrewDog spokesperson. Fans of the brewery can own a share of the business if they trade in 50 empty beer cans.

The initiative, called “cans for equity”, is another way BrewDog is encouraging people to invest in the company through its Equity for Punks scheme.

The beer giant has raised over £74 million through its crowdfunding initiatives. It forms part of a wider strategy that “balances profit with people and planet”. It said it will also use beer that does not meet its quality standards to distill vodka, encourage more people to brew their own beer at home using brewkits, will make more of its beer recipes and knowledge publicly available to BrewDog fans online, fill old cans with its own beer, and invest £1 million per year in research that will help the beer industry “have a positive impact on the world”.

Trinchero to change ‘sexual’ Ménage á Trois wine label

The Portman Group, which regulates alcohol branding in the UK, found fault with a wine made by Napa Valley’s Trinchero Family Estates as it “created a link between the product and sex”. Trinchero has said it will change the labelling of one of its Ménage à Trois wines, Ménage à Trois Midnight, after the Portman Group upheld an anonymous complaint against it. The label says the wine is designed for “satisfying your deepest desires” and “savouring the pleasures of the dark”.

Trinchero launched the Ménage à Trois brand in 1996 with two blends, one of which was a marriage of three red varieties It made Trinchero US$182 million in sales in 2017.

While the wine has been around for years, in 2019, the Portman Group introduced the sixth edition of its Code of Practice, and commissioned Zenith Global to carry out an audit of 500 randomly selected products.

It said Ménage à Trois might breach of the code, which prohibits wine and spirits producers from labelling drinks in a way that makes “any association with sexual activity or sexual success”. The panel said, given the sexual connotations of the name, Ménage à Trois would have to “work much harder to ensure it was not making a direct link to sex” on its wine labels.

A spokesperson for Trinchero said it will revise the label to remove any reference to sex.

Vinitaly aiming for 300 Italian Wine Ambassadors

The Vinitaly International Academy is hoping to recruit a slew of new certified Italian Wine Ambassadors this year, taking its total number of ambassadors to 300.

The VIA team is working to stage the advanced-level Italian Wine Ambassador certification in Verona from 10-14 April 2020, shortly before Vinitaly, which at this stage is still set to go ahead.

Warburtons turns old crumpets into beer

British baked goods behemoth Warburtons is brewing beer with stale crumpets in partnership with sustainable brand Toast Ale.

Jonathan Warburton, whose bakery business posted a £13.5 million loss last year as a result of falling wrapped bread sales and restructuring costs, has turned his attention to beer instead and partnered with sustainable brewer Toast Ale to create an IPA made with leftover crumpets.

It is the first non-baked product in Warburtons’ over 140 year history.

The beer, described as a “light session IPA” with 4.2% ABV, is made by replacing the malted barley in the beer with crumpets leftover in Warburtons’ production, extracting starches and sugars and breaking them down into fermentable sugars.

Champagne Lanson embarks on ‘reconquest’ with new slogan

Champagne Lanson has unveiled a new slogan and advertising campaign as the brand embarks on a ‘reconquest’ to mark 260 years since its foundation in 1760.

Launching this month is the Champagne house’s new branding and advertising using the strapling ‘It’s all about love’, which features a bottle of Lanson cradled in the hands of its winemaker: Hervé Dantan.

The campaign will be used worldwide, with Maison Lanson promising to use a range of hands holding the Champagne in future executions, from winegrowers to ‘great chefs’ and ‘men and women who help bring Lanson Champagnes to life all over the world’.

The slogan replaces ‘The perfect start since 1760’, and the new message and imagery comes as part of a wider refresh for the house following the appointment of a new president in January last year – François Van Aal, who has held roles in advertising and luxury goods marketing, and most recently, a series of senior positions at Rémy-Cointreau, where he has worked for 23 years.

The house has also recruited a new marketing and communication director, Guillaume Truchot, who joined Lanson in May last year from Sarment Group in Singapore, where he was head of strategy and digital transformation, with former roles at Moët Hennessy, Laurent-Perrier and Rémy Cointreau.

Camden Town opens ‘pub for hedgehogs’

London brewery Camden Town has launched a ‘pub for hedgehogs’ initiative, providing a hideaway for hibernating or nesting hedgehogs.

The scheme has been launched in partnership with the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) will see a portion of sales from the brewery’s new lager donated to the society while customers can also buy a hedgehog ‘pub’ to put in their garden.

Dubbed ‘The Hibernation Arms’ the small boxes have been designed to look like a small pub and are designed to provide shelter for hedgehogs while they hibernate in winter and for females to raise their litters of hoglets when the breed in the summer.

The initiative marks the launch of Camden Town’s latest addition to its Seasonal Lager range ‘Hibernation Hells’.

Available from Sainsbury’s and M&S, a portion of the sale of each can will be donated to the BHPS.

Diageo launches bar advocacy programme for Seedlip

Diageo-owned non-alcoholic ‘spirit’ Seedlip has launched The Beasley 24, a new bartender programme built around “the future leaders of the drinks industry.”

The advocacy programme will see Diageo collect a group of bartenders in London and beyond to become brand ambassadors for low ABV and booze-free cocktails made with Seedlip and its sister brand Æcorn, with a series of events that will culminate in a visit to Beasley, Seedlip’s new brand home in Lincolnshire.