Campaign Imminent: Jim Beam rebrands after tapping new creative AOR (Score 20)

Sales Lead: Jim Beam (JB) recently launched a new campaign featuring a new visual identity.

• The brand has rebranded its bottles, website, and point-of-sale materials.
  • This new design was made by JB with assistance from Turner Duckworth.
  • It involves JB's rosette logo but in a rounder, warmer, and "more inviting" version with a new typeface.
  • The new visual identity and packaging will reportedly launch in the US in June 2023.
• The campaign, "People Are Good For You," utilizes brand authenticity and the power of spending time with friends in order to bolster emotional connections with viewers.
  • It rolled out across broadcast TV, streaming, digital, and social channels.
  • TV ads will run five times each week on live sports and cable ahead of Memorial Day and Father's Day.
  • The campaign was made by Leo Burnett, JB's brand-specific creative AOR since September 2022.
• This is all part of an effort to build brand meaning, relevance, distinctiveness, and consistency.
• The brand will likely:
  • ​​​​​​​Continue rolling out promotional material
  • Keep increasing digital spend
  • Conduct additional agency reviews
• Target demographic: 
  • ​​​​​​​Gen-Z and millennial men

Additional spending insights:

• Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: So far this year, JB has spent approximately $3.6m on national TV commercials, only about a third of the approximately $9.3m spent within the same 2022 timeframe.
  • Last year: The bourbon brand spent around $20.6m on this channel in 2022 after having spent 6% more, around $21.8m, in 2021.
  • 2023 ad programming: JB's 2022 commercials have targeted male sports enthusiasts watching shows such as NBA Basketball, NFL Football, SportsCenter, MLB Baseball, and the 2023 World Baseball Classic.
• Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: The brand has allocated roughly $1.4m toward digital ads YTD, almost 5x the roughly $31.1k allocated by this point last year.
  • YTD data: Since the beginning of 2023, JB has earned ~174.1m digital impressions via Facebook (66%), Instagram (21%), YouTube (12%), and desktop display (1%) ads.
  • Last year: The brand's estimated full-year 2022 spend reached $2.6m, 19% less than that of $3.2m
• Additional channel insights  
  • The brand utilizes linear, OTT, local broadcast, print, digital, OOH, Google Ads, and Twitter ads.
  • JB holds planning conversations in Q1 and buying conversations in Q4.
  • The brand also works with sports sponsorships with teams such as the New York Mets, Phoenix Suns, Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers, Chicago Cubs, Minnesota Timberwolves, Houston Astros, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, and Cincinnati Reds.

Additional agency insights:

• Opportunity: Get in touch in case JB seeks PR, media, digital analytics, experiential, multicultural and/or influencer support following the September 2022 AOR hire.
• Current agency roster:
  • ​​​​​​​Leo Burnett: Creative and social AOR (September 2022)
  • Turner Duckworth: Creative agency partner (at least for this rebrand project)
  • StrawberryFrog: Creative AOR
  • Doe-Anderson Advertising: Creative AOR
  • ICF Next: PR AOR
  • Starcom Worldwide: Media and multicultural AOR
  • RedTree Productions: Creative agency partner

Insight Sources: Broadcast, linear, and OTT insights estimated by iSpot; digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics; additional channel insights estimated by Vivvix; sponsorship insights by Relo Metrics.