Bacardi recognised the significant increase in demand for single malt scotch whisky and set about putting plans together to launch the five distilleries responsible for distilling the single malts that make up the majority of the Dewar’s blend; Aultmore, Craigellachie, Aberfeldy, Macduff and Royal Brackla.

How could Bacardi use eCRM to launch and sustain interest and sales in five new and unique single malt whiskies, each with their own complicated and lengthy launch plan, whilst at the same time unify them under the Last Great Malts portfolio?

The uniqueness of the malts and the fact that their release is staggered gave us a story to tell our audience on the database.

We developed the plan for an eCRM campaign that allowed the individual malts to develop their own slow release story, all facilitated by the Last Great Malts portfolio where consumers and business customers alike were encouraged to sign-up to 'make sure the first dram is yours'.

The execution of the campaign required the development of both a technical and creative eCRM platform. Developing email creative that updated consumers on the progress of the whisky as it’s made ready for release, alerting consumers when the whisky is available in their country and even when it’s available in their own neighbourhood and finally developing a brand for each malt.

Since the campaign launched in winter 2014/2015, initial results have been encouraging - without any promotion the scheme has already seen 600+ signups to the database. We are currently seeing an CTR of over 18% (industry average is 3%).