Seagram’s 7 is an unpretentious whiskey that had been lost in a culture of craft spirits and complicated cocktails. After a long span without much advertising support, this former icon lacked a voice and cultural relevance.

Our challenge with the re-launch was to bring the brand back to relevance, with a new tone of voice and look and feel, and give it a new platform that would resonate with its current Gen X audience as well as a new generation of drinkers. Outside of Seagram’s 7’s smoothness, we didn’t have a deep product story to tell, so we trained our storytelling approach on the sensibilities of the type of drinker Seagram’s 7 seeks out and the bars where its sold. ​So, ​we set out to increase social engagement, audience and drive consideration and sales of Seagram’s 7.

“This Is Your Whiskey” is a celebration of the honest, genuine moments that happen with Seagram’s 7. It’s a platform designed to extend from online video and TV throughout home and social, with a focus on Instagram and Facebook. Regardless of the channel, the campaign’s star is the dive bar, a brand world as unpretentious and straightforward as Seagram’s 7 and its audience.

In social media, we used as our foil the craft stories told by whiskey brands--all about charcoal, mellowing, barrels, or water from a very specific place. We modeled the new Seagram’s 7 voice not on a distillery tour guide but on a dive bar bartender: authentic, genuine, true, pithy, clever, with a touch of humor. We developed executional formats that feel at home in the dive bar, delivering headlines on an old bar sign, creating an advice-giving moose head and capturing real dive-bar moments.

“This is Your Whiskey” has helped to put the Seagram’s 7 brand back on map, delivering big results despite a small spend.

Reach and Engagement

Both engagement and follower count more than doubled since campaign launch, creating sharp gains in audience despite minimal media support. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that the campaign is cutting through, delivering on messaging goals of authenticity.

Here’s a sample comment:

“If you’d had enough hipster bullshit and designer whiskey pretending to be old-timey, this is the drink for you.”

Sales and Achievement against business targets

Within the Diageo portfolio, Seagram's 7 was the number-two performer on paid social on both effectiveness and productivity, leading the way across the portfolio in equivalized sales.