• Adweek, Friday, July 27, 2007 11:30 AM

A new ad campaign from Bacardi spends less time on branding than it does promoting the idea of responsible drinking. Tagged "Whatever Your Reason," the ad merges sex and chic with responsibility. Bacardi's fruit bat logo appears briefly in the ad, which is running on national cable nets. Says Darren Moran, group creative director at Young & Rubicam, New York, producer of the ad: "We wanted to be true to the 'Drink responsibly' message and not use it as a way to oversell our product."

Bacardi continues to run branded spots, but this is far from a one-off effort as the No. 3 alcohol company intends to keep it in rotation for a year, increasing its frequency across cable nets during the holidays. Says Joe Metevier, brand director for Bacardi USA, "it's not meant to be a brand spot, but rather it's about the message ...

Bacardi declines to say how much they are shelling out for the campaign but the company's ad spending last year hit $38 million, according to Nielsen-Monitor Plus.

Read the whole story at Adweek »