To commemorate a historic tie to Canada, The Glenlivet was offering an opportunity available only to Canadian Scotch whisky lovers: the rare release of a hand-selected single cask whose bottling would honour World War One pilot Captain John Gordon Smith Grant—descendant of The Glenlivet founder, George Grant, and missing heir to the Distillery, who was wounded in action and received care at a Canadian field hospital in Doullens, France.

With limited bottles available - we needed to target our most devoted Scotch appreciators as a way to pay special tribute to them and to the significance of each bottle.

The 10-week integrated campaign was direct-led and supported by earned, social media and digital ad buys throughout, to drive new Guardian sign-ups.

With less than 300 bottles available, we reached out to our Guardian community in October via targeted emails, which drove them to a personalized microsite where they were given first access to register for exclusive events and to reserve a bottle not available at retail. Registrants could track the cask’s journey from Scotland to Canada and dig into rich content including videos, tasting notes and a countdown to the cask’s release.

While waiting for their bottle's arrival, in January, each registrant received a personal video email message from the distillery, showing their bottle being poured from the cask and signed.

The campaign culminated in immersive tasting events held nationwide in late-January where Guardians picked up their bottle, hand-delivered in-person, by the Distillery’s global ambassador.

The program deepened brand loyalty among existing Canadian Guardians, propelled sales and drove new Guardian acquisition for the brand. Engagement spiked as our Guardian community—and Canadian Scotch Whisky fans—grew increasingly invested in following their bottle’s journey.

• Bottles sold out within the first three weeks

• Program drove 57% of new Guardian sign-ups in 2014 – adding 500 new Canadian brand loyalists

• Email open rates were 56% - more than double the Canadian industry average (23%)

• Links to registration within the emails performed very well, with nearly 2,200 clicks

• More than 13,476 unique visitors came to the microsite during the campaign period

• 800,000 social media impressions were garnered with 14,063 unique engagements.

• Followers/fans across the brand’s Canadian social platforms increased. Our Instagram community grew 245%

driven entirely by content alone.

• Media and bloggers produced 47 stories which generated 8.1 million earned media impressions