• Ad Age, Tuesday, April 1, 2008 11:15 AM

Canadian Club whiskey is finding dad may have all the answers after all. A new campaign it introduced in November--with taglines like "Damn right your dad drank it" and "Your mom wasn't your dad's first"--appears to be reversing a two-decade sales slump.

The mostly print effort, which attempts to redefine dad as less Ward Cleaver and more "Mad Men," has seen case volume in food, drug and liquor stores rise 4.4% in the 13 weeks ending March 8, outpacing the category and its dominant brand, Diageo's Crown Royal, according to AC Nielsen data. Case shipments fell from 3.9 million in 1980 to 1.5 million in 1995, trickling down to 1.3 million last year, according to Impact's Annual Spirits Study.

"People are being bombarded with "Sex and the City" and appletinis," says Rory Finlay, chief marketing officer of Beam Global Wine & Spirits, Canadian Club's parent. "We've been able to take the brand's historical baggage and flip it on its head in that environment."

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