Chivas is often perceived as ‘my dad’s drink’. The marketing task posed to us was to brand consideration amongst younger target 28-40-year-old modern gentlemen, by demonstrating that Chivas has a rightful place at their table. ‘Here’s to Real Friends’ celebrates the friendship stories of 4 Chivas guys whose wild, entertaining, shared experiences have made their friendship solid. To drive brand consideration we created 2 short films that encouraged consumers to spend time with the brand.

These films, ‘Here’s to Big Bear’ and ‘Here’s to Twinkle’ were showcased on a campaign microsite, YouTube brand channels and Facebook fan pages. We drove public awareness of the films with TV trailers, film posters/press, digital advertising, blogger exclusives and video seeding.

At 3 months from launch, ‘Here’s to Real Friends’ is well on its way to achieving its objectives of driving brand consideration: Google searches for 'Chivas Regal' have grown by 886%, outperforming the category average and searches for 'Johnnie Walker'.

Traffic to chivas.com has grown by 510%.

On launch, the extended trailer was ranked 9th within the YouTube entertainment category. With a total of 2,208,113 (19/02/12), views of the films and trailers are among the top 0.4% of YouTube videos.

‘Twinkle’ and ‘Big Bear’ have higher audience retention rates than online video standards when watched on chivas.com.The global Facebook fanbase has increased by 25% since launch. With regards to the Chival Regal global brand team, success is also measured via the reception to the campaign by local markets: ‘Here’s to Real Friends’ is the first Chivas fully integrated campaign, covering 8 media channels, each with a distinct role.

The films, ‘Here’s to Big Bear’ and ‘Here’s to Twinkle’, were showcased on a campaign microsite, YouTube brand channels and Chivas Facebook fan pages. We drove public awareness of the films with TV trailers, film posters, press advertising, digital advertising (including rich media banners, Facebook advertising and YouTube promoted videos), blogger exclusives and video seeding. Additionally, the campaign has inspired some Pernod Ricard ‘firsts’ such as the placement of ‘Here’s to Twinkle’ as a 6-min TV spot on cable TV in Brazil, and pop up cinemas in Thailand.