The Glenfiddich 21 Year Old is an exceptional single malt whisky matured in Scotland and finished in Caribbean rum casks. This gives the liquid extra colour and sweetness, leading us to the proposition Raised in Scotland, Roused by the Caribbean.

To bring this alive, we created a live musical collaboration featuring artists from the two countries; with a new arrangement of the song Love Illumination from Scottish band Franz Ferdinand, fusing the musical heritage of both cultures as a metaphor for the effect the Caribbean has on the whisky. Music was vital in delivering emotion and driving the tonal change from Scotland to the Caribbean.

The artists performed while surrounded by a bespoke installation, which made the whisky 'dance' in time to the music by playing cymatic frequencies through the surface of the liquid, dramatising and visually communicating the product proposition through the bringing together of music and innovative technology

The choice of music was critical - we didn't want to use an old, classic Scottish song as this would suggest that the brand is similarly old-fashioned and we couldn't cannibalise our other expressions or overall brand perceptions.

Franz Ferdinand are a modern, globally successful Scottish Band. They embody the spirit of the modern whisky drinker by having a 'Maverick' attitude that means they don't follow the crowd.

Lyrically, the song needed to say something about the product. In this instance, the track has the key refrain of ‘Sweet Love Illumination’, which perfectly sums up the sweet, honey notes and brighter, redder colour of the whisky.

We created a symphonic arrangement of the track to move the tone into a more premium positioning and provide a musical contrast to the Caribbean instrumentation introduced later in the film.

We built a total of seven cymatic devices, uniquely designed to pick up different frequencies. The most elaborate device suspended a whisky droplet in mid-air using ultrasonic sound waves - the first time this was achieved outside a laboratory. The cymatic devices were fully functioning and captured live. To retain authenticity, no post production techniques were used.

The project was twelve months in the making, most of which was the development of the new arrangement in collaboration with the cymatic devices to ensure the installation used the optimum frequencies.

The video was launched on a global scale, with millions of views from China and the US and hundreds of thousands of views from Lebanon, Singapore, Australia and Nigeria. The film lived online, on social channels and a dedicated landing page.

The video has been well received, with comments including "make a full album” and “for the first time in my life, I didn’t skip the ad", proving genuine entertainment.

Over the four months following the film launch, 52.8 million impressions were served, amassing 11.9 million views across all channels.

With a view-through rate of 23%, (10% above the brand’s benchmark) 9% were completed. Across all sources, the engagement rate was 2.4%. The dwell time for the film landing page was 02:07 - 36 seconds above the site average.

The new target audience was both reached and engaged; 50% of YouTube views came from music and luxury audiences, as opposed to whisky, with 92% of views coming from 25-44 audiences.

Brand positivity increased 10% to 55%. Social conversation ranged from “Old world, new world, classical, exotic… what a mix” to “for the first time in my life, I didn’t skip the ad”, proving both a shift in perception and genuine entertainment.

As a product piece that was created with brand objectives within social, it has not been measured against sales.