Ketel One refreshes Emmy-linked campaign with animated ads

Dive Brief:

Diageo brand Ketel One Family Made Vodka is launching a "Drink Marvelously" campaign at the 71st Emmy Awards this Sunday, according to a company press release. The campaign features a custom Emmy Awards Cocktail Kit for creating eight "Marvelous Mule" drinks at home.
The branded kit, created and delivered in partnership with home delivery service Cocktail Courier, contains the ingredients for the drinks and is available for purchase online. Award-winning mixologist Charles Joly has been tapped to create four original drinks, which will be served at Emmy events.
The campaign also includes a series of "whimsical" illustrations and animations highlighting cocktails, outdoor ad placements in select U.S. cities and a 15-second TV spot airing during the Emmy Awards telecast. The ad will be rolled out nationally on TV and digital platforms next month.

Dive Insight:

This new "Drink Marvelously" campaign is an update to a similar effort for last year's Emmy Awards, where the Dutch vodka brand was the official spirits sponsor. Last year's campaign also included original drinks from Joly and a partnership with Cocktail Courier. In addition, there was also an alliance with ride-sharing service Lyft to help Emmy attendees and viewers get home safely.

The new campaign is part of Ketel One's ongoing efforts to make its drink part of custom home-based experiences, as experiences appeal to younger consumers, especially millennial women. Home cocktail making is also the premise of LG's campaign around its new InstaView models, which features a pop-up bar and cocktail competition this week between Vanilla Ice and Ice-T.

Ketel One last fall offered another experience-based campaign that featured cocktail recipes and tips for "girls night in" events in partnership with Drizly and Alisha Ramos, founder of the Girls' Night In Club. These kinds of campaigns tend to appeal to younger consumers, who are a key market for subscription services like Cocktail Courier and delivery services like Drizly.

The animated ads bolster the campaign with a playful sense of whimsy that undercuts the stuffiness of a company that has a 328-year, 11-generation distilling legacy. Similarly, Dum Dums lollipops launched its first advertising campaign in 30 years that used the candy to add color to black-and-white animations reminiscent of Shel Silverstein books.