BYOM: Innovation in Media Creation Comes from Bourbon Brand

Like other CPGs, Maker's Mark is bypassing traditional publishing options.

It's troubling that more and more package goods companies bypass publishers of all sorts and become their own media, such as Kraft Food and Family magazine. Now Beam Global Spirits & Wine is in the business of BYOM-Bring Your Own Media.

Beam is the fourth largest spirits player globally (behind Diageo, Pernod Ricard and Bacardi.)  It controls brands such as Jim Beam, Canadian Club, and Maker's Mark. And Maker's Mark-I happen to be a Bourbon person-is where I personally experienced their excellent and thought-provoking work.

Rory Finlay, Beam's CMO, said in a recent interview that he put the company's entire ad budget-it spent $28.4 million on U.S. measured media last year in 2008-behind building word-of-mouth buzz for its brands in 2009. That obviously means different things for different brands, but for Maker's Mark, one of the things they are doing is creating their own media platform that has print product delivered to the home, social networking and Web communication-all bypassing traditional outside media companies.  

My media relationship with the brand started when I signed up to be an "Ambassador" for the distillery. The reward for letting the company capture my demographic and related information and for allowing them to send me marketing emails was having a specific barrel bear my name. How cool is that? Well for me, it is definitely cool enough that I am happy to engage with the brand through their invitation-only Web site that has a social media component as well.

In June I received  a fat, 8" x 11.5"  envelope with a compelling teaser-"HISTORIC BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT ENCLOSED." Among the contents was an announcement and certificate commemorating what I think of now as The Ava Seave Memorial Whiskey Barrel; it had been filled and was now "resting in one of our aging warehouses."  (Hmmm...a lot like me, I guess.)   

In the letter, the President/Ambassador-at-large of the company mentions that it takes up to seven years for the barrel to become Maker's Mark bourbon. This sounds like a fairly legitimate license to keep in touch for a very long time. Let's see how well Maker's Mark handles the problem of communications fatigue as the years roll on.