A Holidays Campaign Idea for Pernod Ricard
Geeta Sundaram
Ex-Ogilvy, Brand Strategist & Creative Director/writer, over 20 years in the business; open to relocating anywhere
It’s that time of the year. The festive season is here in India and soon, it will be around the world. The festive spirit is in the air and in many countries, it means partying, gifting and sharing good times together. Economically, it could also be just what the doctored ordered, at a time when inflation is still coming in the way of consumer spending, and a boost to personal consumption would be a welcome idea.
I had recently written on the festive season economy and how it tends to be dominated by discounts and sales, when there are other ways to engage with consumers and strengthen relationships at this time. Well, here is a case where festive season marketing and communication is not about price-offs and sales, but about consumption and social occasions. I am talking of the wines and spirits industry and how companies can communicate during The Holidays.
Seagram created and followed a tradition of promoting responsible drinking globally, especially during the Christmas and New Year Holidays. From the time the company started operating in India in 1993-94, they worked with Ogilvy Advertising in the Delhi office – where I worked, having just returned from Contract Advertising for my second stint with the agency – to create a responsible drinking campaign for TV. This formed an integral part of their corporate brand campaign in India and ran during the festive season every year, for decades. Pernod Ricard continued with this tradition, but seems to have discontinued it more recently and I wonder why.
I do think that Pernod Ricard, as the world’s second-largest wines and spirits company, must communicate with their consumers at this very busy and important time of the year with a corporate message. I also think that with the spirit of conviviality being the company’s core value, it can communicate the message of responsible drinking in the context of good and convivial times. Of course, the message must be communicated in a manner that is specific to Pernod Ricard and its new corporate brand positioning of “Savoir faire in fine living” – that is at least my recommendation, and I have already shared my corporate brand strategy as well as communication ideas for Pernod Ricard on my blog.
You can take a look at my thoughts and ideas for Pernod Ricard’s corporate Holidays campaign in the document below.
The ideas for the TV/video adverts are in the document above, and I have also designed layouts for the responsible drinking Holidays print campaign, which you may view below, even though I am not a designer or an art director. There are two different layout options for the print campaign as you will see, though my preference is for the campaign with the white background.
In addition, since I do recommend using the digital/social medium for this Holidays campaign, I have created a gif each, for one of the adverts in both the layout options, for the digital medium.
领英推荐
Finally, budgets permitting, I think Pernod Ricard should also engage with their partners at luxury hotels in their most important markets to devise special and exclusive Holidays marketing programmes. This would help build Pernod Ricard’s corporate brand image as an international maker of premium wines and spirits, and also strengthen the company’s relationships with luxury hotels, an important channel partner in the wines and spirits business.
Here’s to The Holidays, then! May good cheer and conviviality add to the festive spirit.?
The stock images used in the Holidays responsible drinking campaign are from Pixabay and Unsplash and I am thankful to them
Post script: I suspect unprofessional PR agency idiots have meddled with WordPress and speeded up the first digital advert option on white ground, when the advert that I created in Canva and that is on my computer is of total 7 seconds duration, while this is just 5 seconds I think, with the second frame reduced in time by half. They just cannot leave me alone and in peace, as you can see!
This article was first published on my blog on November 21, 2024.