Brown-Forman builds ‘contextually relevant’ brands through BBDO partnership

The tie-up aims to hit a new level of consumer engagement across Asia.

For more than a century, Brown-Forman Corporation has enriched the experience of life by responsibly building fine quality beverage alcohol brands, with some being amongst the world’s most famous names, such as Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey, Woodford Reserve Bourbon, Glendronoch Scotch Whisky, Diplimatico Rum, and Gin Mare, amongst others.

The company’s brands are sold in more than 170 countries and have been supported by over 5000 employees worldwide.

Recently, it has consolidated its Asia Consumer communication management to BBDO Asia, removing hundreds of layers of fragmented messaging to consumers. This has helped Brown-Forman brands become more relevant within Asia and hit a new level of consumer engagement across Asia.

But, this was a challenging feat.

When Christian Ozzati (Marketing Director of Asia) came into the region and worked with his Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) team, he discovered significant gaps in communication coverage across the region. The company deemed building relevance with its consumers one of the most significant barriers to overcome in this landscape to achieve long-term growth.

This assessment comes as the company needed to bridge the gap with Western and Eastern cultures to make its globally-created campaign “Make it Count for Jack Daniel’s” succeed, as well as to ensure that consumers know what the brand stands for.

The company’s overarching strategy for success is to “continually recruit the next generation of Jack Daniel’s drinkers in Asia.” For Ozzati, one of the most significant enablers is having contextually relevant communication that engages Asians to try and buy their brands.

Understanding these strategic issues that needed to be overcome, Ozzati knew bringing BBDO Asia would step change its strategic approach and execution within IMC.

“What is significant about BBDO is the direct link between global content creation and regional to local Asia execution, which will ensure we have contextually relevant communication in each market with seamless agency-to-agency ways of working,” Ozzati said.

With the success of the communications strategy, Ozzati and his IMC team are onboarding and briefing in the planning for 2024. The company expects substantially more communication and presence of its brands across Asia going into the next year and beyond.

“The next 18 months will be fixing fundamentals, ensuring we are strategically communicating and leveraging our resources to drive reach whilst introducing our brands to Asian consumers,” Ozzati said.

Brown-Forman also forecasts that from 2025 onwards, they will be intertwined with BBDO and begin to execute a smoother and more stable business rhythm.