• by Aaron Baar , June 27, 2008

Having spent the past four years touting the quality and craftsmanship that goes into making its signature bourbon--and building one of the best-known brands in the business--Jim Beam will be using its future advertising budget to promote others that share similar qualities with the brand.

"We spent a lot of time talking about the liquid in the bottle. Now we want to articulate the behavior of the brand," Beam Global Spirits & Wine chief marketing officer Rory Finlay tells Marketing Daily.

To promote the individuals and organizations the company feels share the same attributes--which include character, integrity, trust and perseverance--the company has established thestuffinside.com to showcase them. Among those being touted at the initial launch are: amateur photographer Mark Murrmann, independent hip-hop act Crown City Rockers, tattoo artist Russ Abbott and comedy troupe Summer of Tears. The site also includes charitable organizations such as Operation Homefront and the Terry Farrell Firefighters Fund.

Some of the subjects were well known to Beam prior to the campaign's conception, like the sponsorship of Nascar driver Robby Gordon and the Terry Farrell Fund, which the company has been involved with for years. From there, the company branched out to find others that fit its vision of the brand's characteristics put into action, Finlay says.

"All of them, in their own particular way, have a uniqueness in what they do and how they approach things," he says.

Site sections for each group or individual include mini-profiles of the person as well as links to other areas on the Web, such as a MySpace page for a Flickr showcase. There are also easy donation buttons for the charitable organizations.

The people and organizations selected by Beam will be featured in the company's future advertising. An initiative for Operation Homefront, for instance, encourages consumers (of legal drinking age, naturally) to "post a toast" to servicemen and--women. The best toasts may be featured in future Jim Beam advertising. Another example: a radio ad will feature music by the Crown City Rockers.

"The goal is to drive people to the Web site and get them engaged with the brand," Finlay says. "If people are talking about your brand, they're going to engage in your brand, and that's going to increase likeability."

Jim Beam also merits its own section on the site, with explanations about the Stuff Inside marketing initiative and a video showcasing the people featured elsewhere on the site. The video concludes with the words: "Integrity and character now have corporate sponsorship." There are also spaces for suggestions of others the brand supports.

"One of the things we hope is that people will bring us examples of subjects that we should be championing," Finlay says.