Luxardo, the well-known producers of Italian liqueur, enlisted the help of Media Bounty to steer the brand away from the increasingly competitive Sambuca market and drive interest in their other products. They devised and implemented a large-scale engagement campaign to leverage its rich heritage and versatility, resulting in a 60 per cent year-on-year growth in sales across the Luxardo cherry product range. Media Bounty discuss the work
Luxardo is a brand with an exceptionally strong heritage, producing Luxardo Maraschino liqueur since 1821. Despite being established in the on-trade as producers of the finest maraschino product available, Luxardo were actually better known for Sambuca, pioneering the category in the UK and taking it into the mainstream mass market.
The Sambuca market was becoming increasingly price-competitive and, with little or no brand recall, a decision was taken to move investment and focus to other products in the Luxardo portfolio—the heritage cherry brands like Maraschino, Sangue Morlacco and Luxardo Cherries supported by the distinctively Italian flavours of Limoncello and Amaretto, while of course remaining price competitive on Sambuca.
Strategy
To take advantage of a burgeoning consumer trend towards cocktails, a decision was taken to promote the brand directly with the gatekeepers of the cocktail world—the bartenders—by leveraging Luxardo’s dramatic 200 year heritage as a distillery of distinction.
Four campaign objectives were identified:
– To encourage re-evaluation of the Luxardo brand as much more than just Sambuca
– To re-engage the on-trade with Luxardo to create long-term relationships and associations
– To demonstrate the versatility of the Luxardo range in cocktails
– To encourage bars to order, bartenders to use and consumers to recognise Luxardo’s products
To do this, we developed a large-scale national trade engagement campaign encompassing video, digital and social channels.
In seeking to raise the profile of the Luxardo brand while also creating new opportunities to use its products (in cocktails), the campaign was specifically designed to impact directly on sales. In turn, this would lead to stronger visibility and heightened recognition among consumers, which would then continue to fuel sales growth.
Execution
Video was chosen to bring the brand story to life. A website was created as the hub for a national cocktail competition and new cross platform social channels were launched to ensure we engaged and communicated with as much of the on-trade as possible.
Work on the ‘Our Story’ video started with a visit to Italy where Media Bounty met three generations of the Luxardo family to piece together the exceptional story of the brand. Filming took place in Italy and London, with the final film incorporating extensive archive photography which we brought to life using Parallax. The final video is cinematic in quality with production values that exceeded expectations for the budget.
Social media activity centred on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube—each of which was targeted specifically at the on-trade audience.
A fully responsive website was designed, built and launched as a major hub for Luxardo’s national cocktail competition. The 2014 Luxardo Cocktail Campione Competition set out to discover the UK’s finest mixologist—a bartender who could create the finest Italian-inspired cocktail.
Bartenders entered by submitting their recipes and an image or video of their creation via the website, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Every entry could be accessed via the website’s gallery, demonstrating the versatility of the Luxardo portfolio. Bartenders were invited to participate via a series of live heats around the country. The competition was also promoted with Vines. At a party at The Dolls House in London, 16 shortlisted bartenders mixed their cocktails in front of the cameras. All the filmed entries were uploaded to the website to provide further inspiration for ambitious mixologists.
Three finalists took part in the grand final which was held in Italy, home of Luxardo. Media Bounty filmed the proceedings (see here) to provide assets for the ongoing 2015 campaign.
Results
Sales of across all three products in the Luxardo cherry portfolio rose a spectacular 60 per cent year on year. More than 1,700 new listings were achieved across the on-trade in 2014. The fully-responsive website performed exceptionally well, attracting more than 4,000 new users from the on-trade throughout the campaign, and achieving an average session time of four minutes and 21 seconds. The competition garnered 17,392 views and helped to inspire the creation of more than 100 original Luxardo cocktails. The Facebook page attracted over 1,500 new Likes, all recruited via a narrow and on-trade specific targeting campaign. The brand owners are now looking at rolling out the campaign in both the USA and Canada in 2015.