Scottish Leader Strategy, Brand + Creative Engagement
PROJECT LEAD, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, ART DIRECTOR
Founded in 1976, Scottish Leader is an award-winning blended scotch brand that is sold in over 30 countries around the world. With growing appeal in key established and emerging whisky markets, Scottish Leader was looking for a Big Idea to unify its brand communications moving forward, one that would engage with younger audiences in an authentic way while staying true to its existing values and objectives:
To elevate Scottish Leader to inspirational brand status across borders & cultures.
We began with a rigorous brand audit conducted by global Brand Strategist Lisha Klopper, who reviewed the brand's internal and external opportunities and challenges across three categories: competitors, category, culture, and brand. From here, she uncovered takeaways leading her to a core insight. This was further developed into a Strategy Prpoposition and Manifesto that would form the jumping off point for creative. The trick to this work is uncovering an insight that is objective and true, yet is aspirational and allows creatives the space and opportunity to fly - a bullseye Lisha excels in hitting.
From here we passed the baton to Creative Copy Director Jon Ollivier to lead the team in delivering the Big Idea - a compelling and overarching concept that would bring the new brand positioning strategy to life. In particular, Scottish Leader was looking for a concept with the potential to drive a multi-region brand marketing campaign. This idea had to capture the essence of the brand, resonate deeply with the target audience, and differentiate the brand from its competitors. It had to be exciting and engaging, potential across a range of scales, and flexibility across a range of markets and channels. Most importantly, for both clients and customers, it was critical that we tell a story that immediately cut to the heart of what Scottish Leader is all about. Jon - as always - knocked this out of the park.
The next step was to refine this campaign into a Campaogn Toolkit, including Tone of Voice and Look and Feel. For copy, we tapped Sebastian Covino, and for campaign design we approached Vinicius Rodrigues. Inspired by the work, client requested a complete brand update / refresh to follow the new campaign look and feel. For this we engaged Dave Shirlaw for brand and product copy, and Tom Douglas for Brand Visual Identity Design.
As well as project lead throughout the entire engagement, I was also assisted Tom on design, wokring on packaging, uniforms, on-trade display, activations, booth and pop design, among other applications.
Off the back of this significant body of work, we embarked on a new year-long enagement to produce and manage official social content for the brand. Leading the project again - this time as both project lead and creative/art director - we engaged with Bangkok-based content production outfit Offscreen Studio Led by Taj Luksika to produce a series of still, motion, and video content to launch the new brand look and feel on socials. With support from Offscreen, I led the creative and artistic direction which was approved quickly, leading directly to a 3-day on-site shoot in Bangkok, shooting product stills, and cocktail videos. We also produced a set of motion content for each of the key products, and completed delivery end-to-end in 2 months.
This resulted in a bold new look for the brand on socials, with strong messaging and crisp new brand visuals, including a range of brand communication, product highlights, and celebratory content.
In the meantime, the client team redesigned the official Scottish Leader website. While we were not a part of the design execution, it has been incredible to see the brand design (as well as copy and content) we helped develop be rolled out and go live to the world.
It's been an absolute honour to have been a part of this exciting transition in the long history of Scottish Leader. We look forward to many more creative collaborations in the future.
PROJECT TEAM
PROJECT LEAD Rich Akers BRAND STRATEGIST Lisha Klopper CREATIVE DIRECTORS Jon Ollivier / Rich Akers COPYWRITERS Sebastian Covino / Dave Shirlaw / Jaymi Holt / Rich Akers ART DIRECTORS Vinicius Rodrigues / Tom Douglas / Rich Akers AGENCIES Mash / Piece of Cake