Stellar Gin embraces influencers
When Brown-Forman launched their Stellar Gin in four test markets, they wanted to be sure they put it in the hands of folks that would try it, like it and get the word out to their friends and colleagues that this was the new gin in town. With that in mind, Brown-Forman launched an influencer program to promote trial and awareness among young professionals in one of the four test markets: Indianapolis.
Upscale nightclubs were all the rage in Indy, which means that getting Stellar Gin -- and Stellar Gin drinkers -- behind velvet ropes and into VIP rooms was an integral part of promoting the product.
Brown-Forman's WOM agency, Ammo Marketing, applied their Influencer Index as a means of identifying who the most advantageous influencers would be for this product category. Those influencers, dubbed "Stellar VIPs," were then given all the right tools to get themselves and their friends and colleagues behind those pesky velvet ropes.
For four months, a Stellar Concierge -- the backbone of Stellar's VIP program -- developed and executed events for the 200 Stellar VIPs, and their friends and colleagues, and got these influencers behind velvet ropes around the city, where they were able to live it up with Stellar Gin on the brain.
Brown-Forman's WOM endeavor resulted in more than 2,500 direct experiences with the Stellar brand, and garnered high-purchase intents from the VIPs, as well as from the people they told about the program and events. Fifty percent of the VIPs told more than nine people about the program, 25 percent of the VIPs told more than 15 people about it-- and that's word of mouth in action.
Credit Information
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Client: Brown-Forman (Stellar Gin)
Agency: Ammo Marketing
Budget: Undisclosed
Date of campaign: May to September 2006
Excerpted from WOMMA's Case Studies Library.
