Monday, March 20, 2017

1800 Tequila taking a Chance on a new (w)rapper

A specially designed set of 1800 Tequila bottles
Normally, I pay zero attention to celebrity endorsements of products. After all, what do they really mean beyond the simple fact that someone was given money to read a script saying nice things about a product? If such things actually persuade you to buy something, I fear for you.

But, every now and then I see such endorsements and wonder merely as a marketing question about the thinking behind them. Take the case of a young entertainer who calls himself Chance the Rapper (actual name Chancelor J. Bennett). Although he has won several Grammys for his work, and he has been an admirable advocate of fighting violence in his murder-plagued hometown of Chcago, he also spends a lot of his time getting paid to hype products -- Dockers, Nike, H&M clothing, Kit-Kat candy bars, etc.

Which brings us to the 1800 Tequila brand. Its public relation agency CP+B Los Angeles has just launched a rebranding campaign that presents it as “Just Refined Enough.” The ad is set  to a new song by Chance and involves a training session in a boxing gym, one of the fighters playing piano at a bar, and finishes with the word “Refined” onscreen, followed by the tagline “Just Refined Enough.”

So, what is this all about? It says nothing about the tequila's qualities which I, as a novice when it comes to marketing but a consumer of many decades' experience, find perplexing. At least Chance's Kit-Kat commercials say the candy tastes good. But, when it comes to the tequila, apparently it is supposed to make some social statement, carry a message to the consuming masses, and so on.

“We’re trying to … start a conversation about what modern masculinity is,” says 1800 Tequila group brand director Erin Chin in an interview with Adweek magazine.

That certainly is what I want to when I'm thinking about buying a bottle of tequila. Oh, and by the way, the rebranding campaign also includes custom bottles designed by artist Enoc Perez, which will make their debut as part of the Guggenheim Museum’s Essential Artists Series.

At least that's tangible. Like Kit-Kats.

Yeahh!

• Go here to visit the Capital Region Brew Trail
• Go here to visit Notes On Napkins
• Go here to visit Dowd's New York Wines Notebook

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