• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, December 7, 2009

The brand has relaunched its site (donq.com) to make it first and foremost a home for "DonQ's LadyData," a continually expanding digital collection of questions from guys and answers supplied by hundreds of women.

In fact, users of the site needn't go through the usual age gate/date of birth question to get into the LadyData area, because it does not promote alcoholic products (the gate comes up if a user wants to get into product information areas).

Word-of-mouth for the service -- and further engagement with the brand -- is being built via social media, including Facebook and Twitter and newer comers such as Foursquare, Tumblr, BuzzFeed, Nerve, Mixologist, HappyHoured and The Deck Network.

"Instead of being in your face with our brand and products, we're providing men with a service they really want and need," and where they spend a preponderance of their time, says Yisell Muxo, national field marketing, DonQ. In many cases, members of the core target audience (men of drinking age up to 35) have an "almost emotional attachment" to their mobile phones, which has only grown since apps have boomed, she notes.

Given that the liquor category tends to be heavily reliant on on-site promotions and sampling and "one-way" advertising, there was "a clear space" for DonQ to enter with a service-oriented marketing perspective, adds Clay Parker Jones of New York-based digital strategy firm Undercurrent, who is the lead strategist on the project.

DonQ -- the leading rum in Puerto Rico, where it is distilled -- is using approximately 30% of its marketing budget on this and other digital product development, according to Serralles USA, its exclusive importer.

When users of LadyData click into a question, they see the percentages of women who gave a yes, no or other answer to that question, and can click into a profile for each woman who has responded. (It's not possible to email or otherwise interact with the women through the site, and all content is screened by editors prior to going live.)

Undercurrent identified a core group of 70 women through Doubleagent.com (another site offering "intelligence for men from women"), then worked with these women in a private Facebook group to garner friend recommendations and build the network organically, explains Parker Jones, who says the only demographic requirement is that women participating be between the ages of 21 and 35.

DonQ has geared its engagement efforts/content on the social media to the specific nature of each -- using Twitter to send out tips from the pool of ladies, and using simple polls and capsules of findings from the LadyData site on Facebook and Tumblr, for example. Viral dynamics such as a Facebook poll participant's answers showing on his or her friends' news feeds are helping to expand the service's users rapidly, according to Parker Jones.