• by Lynn Russo , June 27, 2006

Personalized labels, messages boost spirits brand

 The speed of e-mail communication can offer a tremendous competitive edge for marketers  or so thought RowenWarren when it was awarded Pernod Ricard USA's Kahlua account last year. The New York-based boutique agency needed to get a campaign launched in a hurry. After finding other media "booked solid," the agency pursued an e-mail strategy. The medium's short lead time also allowed the brand to be both nimble and creative.

Pernod, which also markets the Chivas Regal, Stolichnaya, and Malibu brands, gave the agency three goals for a holiday e-mail campaign. In addition to increasing sales, the spirits company wanted to create excitement and build an emotional bond with consumers.

Prior to the Kahlua project, RowenWarren had executed campaigns offering personalized gift labels for some of Pernod's other brands. The agency knew from experience that the offer would work equally well for Kahlua, Pernod's largest brand. But the program needed some updating to achieve the company's goals. In addition, some names in the database were nearly 10 years old. "No one had really mined it for any significant database growth," says Dave Warren, president of RowenWarren.

For the first time, the agency created a dedicated Web site called giftlabel.com, as well as companion sites that invited consumers to create their own personalized holiday messages, choosing from a variety of fonts. They could choose graphics, such as ringing bells, clinking glasses, and a dove for their messages. Visitors were able to place the images on a bottle and preview them. The labels, which arrived in the mail a few days later, were designed to be slightly larger than existing labels to make them easy to overlay.

Last December, RowenWarren sent 290,000 e-mails to women ages 21 to 65 on the Pernod database. Even though 25 percent of the addresses were undeliverable due to the age of the database, the personal nature of the offer generated a record-breaking response. Kahlua saw a 12 percent open rate and an 8 percent conversion rate. Recipients ordered nearly 20,000 free Kahlua gift labels, and roughly 80 percent of those who requested them said the gift labels influenced their decision to purchase a bottle of the liqueur.

A second e-mail campaign to the same group ran prior to Valentine's Day. In addition to the e-mail offer, some 66,000 newer names in the database also received a postcard mailer.

To date, more than 48,000 labels have been ordered, and the feedback from customers has been positive, Pernod reports. "From this campaign, we learned that people really want to get involved on a personal level with their favorite brands," says Warren. "In fact, today, because of technology, their expectations have almost made that a necessity.

"E-mail is huge for Kahlua marketing and will play a large role in our marketing plans for the brand for the rest of the year," Warren adds. RowenWarren plans to split future mailings more evenly between men and women, and will begin segmenting and targeting e-mails.