by R. Asmerom

Have you been ordering more Belvedere at the club as of late and really can’t explain why? Someway, somehow, maybe you got the message that Belvedere was what’s good.

Thanks to a slick campaign launched in 2010 by Alloy Access and one50one, Belvedere increased sales by 139 percent by leveraging the power of social influence via social media. The success of the marketing campaign exceeded expectations. “We learned so much about taking our DSM (digital, social, mobile) integration to newer heights and newer levels,” said Troy Brown, founder of one50one. “The CPG (consumer packaged goods)  industry has taken note, the non profit industry has taken note, even some political campaigns have taken note.”

The team behind the award-winning Hennessy Artistry campaign stepped it up a bit with its approach with Belvedere. The campaign tapped into the nightlife scenes in key markets by recruiting six influencers in the cities of Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Washington DC, Los Angeles and New York. Utilizing a custom portal, the influencers communicated brand-specific messages.  The result was 144 million plus social media impressions, according to Brown.

Pitching The Campaign

Both Alloy Access and one50one conducted key research to develop the unique approach, but obviously had to sell the idea to Belvedere prior to execution.

“We educated the brand on insights associated with the consumer target they were trying to reach,” explained Brown. “We said ‘here’s who your brand is and here are the brand attributes for your brand, here is the consumer you’re trying to reach, here are their likes, their dislikes, and we established the intersection between the two and built the whole strategy to attack that intersection point.”

That intersection point and their findings led them to determine that “Belvedere is for the individual unaffected by the hype of the masses and resistant to the norm.” That tagline informed the selection of the influencers.