Brand Awareness and Old Pulteney

Brand awareness is often the primary objective of Clipper Race partners, and in fact a common objective for many companies involved in global sports partnerships. The ultimate goal is to be recognised by potential customers and to be positively associated with a particular product, service or destination.

Clipper 2013-14 Race Team Partner Old Pulteney, a Scottish Whisky, used the Clipper Race as a vehicle to increase the global brand awareness of the Old Pulteney story and award-winning taste through a unique multi-platform campaign.

These partnerships aim to associate users and audiences with positive brand experiences, which result in long lasting positive recall in whenever the brand is seen or heard of in future.

Hitesh Bhasin on Marketing 91 says: “The availability and existence of a specific brand in the minds of people is very important as we live in a world where people have a tendency to lean towards branded products. The decision of a consumer whether to buy a product or not is often dependent on his/her awareness about that particular brand. Understanding helps in making the choice easier.

"When a consumer goes to a market, he will go through the different brands for a particular product but he will definitely buy the most familiar and recognizable product. It is not possible for a company to operate successfully until and unless consumers are aware of that brand and its products.”

Old Pulteney took a creative and proactive approach to achieving brand awareness, via a fully integrated campaign which included:

Product exposure:

• New product launch, tasting/sampling events, creation of a limited edition Clipper Race bottle, promotional giveaways and more.

Advertising:

• Promotional spinnaker sail shoot during the Cape Town Clipper Race stopover, used as main creative for magazines, window shop displays, billboards and more.

Competitions:

• A European and a US on-pack competition offering money can’t buy race experiences.

Digital:

• Included a full responsive dual branded microsite and development of a social and digital message board app for friends, family and fans to send messages of support to the boats.

Experiential:

• Sailing experiences followed by sampling events for international distributors; and ground breaking, bespoke pop-up shops in Schiphol International and Edinburgh Airports, created to mirror the shape of the Old Pulteney yacht, to name just a few.

Media and PR:

• Included whisky master classes for media and key distributors in key global markets, including Europe, Australia, Asia and the USA

Old Pulteney’s participation in the Clipper Race raised its international profile and recruited new fans in the form of journalists, distributors, customers and race crew from all over the world.

Results included:

• Exposure to 5.1 million people through airport travel retail stands

• 15.6 million impressions on Facebook and Twitter

• All 3000 cases of Navigator Whisky sold out during the Clipper Race year, resulting in new bottling of 3000 cases for the following year.

• 7% increase in unprompted brand awareness of Old Pulteney
• 18.3% year-on-year increase in volume sales in the UK

• 15.4% year-on-year increase in value in the UK

Read the full case study here.