Summary
In Sterling Reserve Project the brand found the perfect vehicle to bring alive its purpose while also delivering on key business objectives and consumer perceptions. With its adaptive creative nature Sterling Reserve Project has aided in heightening the brand's imagery as well as engagement with its target audience by positioning the brand as young, contemporary and dynamic.
Challenge
India is the world's largest whisky consuming market dominated extensively by a host of large legacy brands. The Indian admix whisky industry, in particular, had for long been the reserve of behemoth brands. As a new entrant in this space, Sterling Reserve Premium Whiskies faced the uphill task of establishing a unique brand identity with the new age consumer while also competing for share of mind versus well-entrenched behemoth legacy brands. The legacy brands have traditionally relied upon the popular domains of sports and movies with a few signing on celebrities from these fields as brand ambassadors. Given the evolving sensibilities of the modern younger whisky drinker Sterling Reserve wanted to establish itself as accessible, relatable and more relevant than competition. The task for us was clearly cut out – disrupt a highly competitive market dominated by big names with a proposition that resonates with young whisky drinkers.
Objective
In sharp contrast to the legacy brands dominating consumer mindspace with a barrage of seemingly-similar content around films, sports and fashion, we created a distinctive asset that could remain integral to pop culture for a sustained period – The Sterling Reserve Projects. The Sterling Reserve Projects was created with a two-fold agenda: 1. To create a distinctive brand property for Sterling Reserve outside the world of whiskies that reflects the core brand belief of ‘The relentless pursuit of perfection' 2. To leverage the brand property as a tool for frequent engagement & interaction with the brand (beyond moments of consumption) that eventually heighten its desire & imagery
Strategy
In an effort to meet of the above objectives, Sterling Reserve chose a path away from the glitz and glamour of celebrities that would resonate better with its core audience. Central to this strategy was the understanding that consumers today are more discerning and do not necessarily turn to larger than life icons when making brand choices. Furthermore, key opinion leaders for the target audience today is composed of their immediate social circle as well as personalities who have made a name for themselves in the consumers' areas of interest. These personalities thus become more real and relatable making brand messaging more credible and authentic. This thinking led to the birth of Sterling Reserve Projects, a digital-first platform for multi-faceted art forms like music and comedy that allowed emerging as well as established artists to redefine their journey in achieving excellence in their craft. Operating like an umbrella property, allowed the brand to pivot the platform to multiple creative genres which allowed for greater engagement with the target audience. Sterling Reserve Projects is an enabler platform that echoes the brand belief that crafting value is a continuing and evolving journey rather than a destination. It brings to life the brand ethos of the ‘continuous pursuit of perfection' by giving emerging artists across genres a platform to hone their talent and showcase it to the world at large. To ensure that the quality of content and the caliber of talent that is associated with the brand is of the highest standard, Sterling Reserve tied up with industry leaders from the relevant fields i.e. Universal Music India for music and Comedy Central India for comedy. These partners brought in functional expertise and aided in seamless execution and amplification of the campaign.
Data
For our target audience, digital is the main source of entertainment where music and comedy plays a major role in their life. As per the Digital Music Study 2019 released by the Indian Music Industry (IMI) which represents the recorded music industry in India: • 80% of surveyed internet users identified themselves as "music fanatics" or "music lovers", higher than the corresponding global average of 54% • An Indian typically spends 19.1 hours per week listening to music, much higher than the global average of 18 hours. • 97% of those surveyed used smartphones to listen to music, while 62% used social media sites or apps to listen to music or watch music videos. • Compared to their global counterparts, respondents in India showcased a greater preference to visually engage with music- with the time spent on video streaming services accounting for 28% of the average user's total listening time in India, compared to the global average of 19.6% According to the FICCI-EY 2021 report, the media and entertainment (M&E) industry in India is estimated to be around Rs. 1.38 trillion. • Digital and online gaming were the only segments which grew in 2020 adding INR 26 billion and increasing salience to 23% from 16% last year. Television, however, continues to remain the largest segment with nearly half of the revenues of the entire M&E industry. • Digital subscriptions showed the highest growth (@49%) where 28 mn Indians (versus 10.5 mn in 2019) paid for 53 mn OTT subscriptions • In digital media, the entertainment audience grew 15% in 2020 to reach 450 mn unique Indians. Time spent on online entertainment increased 49% in 2020. • Of the total titles produced by OTT players, comedy came in no.3 position and the share of the pie is getting progressively bigger.
Solution
Sterling Reserve Music Project (SRMP) • SRMP co-created with Universal Music India (UMI) helped discover indigenous talent & connect them to a wider audience. • Artists sent in their demos which were then curated by UMI and produced along with a video for the track. The brand and product were seamlessly fit into the videos. • Since YouTube is a key music consumption platform for the target audience, SRMP created its own dedicated channel to which users could subscribe to listen to fresh sounds from the indie space. Social media platforms for SRMP, the artists and UMI were leveraged to build surround hype around the launched tracks and drive brand engagement. • During the COVID-19 pandemic induced lockdown, we pivoted the platform and launched sub-interventions which allowed for content to be created at home and keep the platform alive. ‘Sonic Labs' saw upcoming music producers compete to create a unique sonic identity for the platform while ‘SRMP Breakout' allowed artists to create at-home music videos that were then amplified on YouTube. Sterling Reserve Comedy Project (SRCP) • SRCP was co-created with Comedy Central India and gives budding stand-up comedians the chance to become the country's next big comedy icon. An audience vote based talent search, SRCP finds strong consumer resonance in its edgy fun content, interactions with upcoming and established comedians and engagements on social media. • Short format content, apt for the digitally savvy consumer, was amplified online and on-air for audiences to decide their favourites and vote for the same. The top vote-getters performed in front of an expert panel featuring some of India's biggest comedy stars. • To drive traffic to the voting microsite, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were extensively leveraged. Video bytes, BTS content, memes from the episodes and live engagements kept audiences hooked.
Results
• Sterling Reserve Projects saw high reach across the digital platforms of YT, FB, IG, with each sub-genre being tactfully spread and balanced across these handles to drive maximum visibility & engagement for the mother brand. • Given that the objective of the platform was to act as an imagery builder for the brand, engagement on the content was key. Success metrics for the platforms were identified such that they could be a clear reflection of consumer interest in the content created. • For SRMP the YouTube channel subscriber base was a measure of efficacy for the content. The channel has acquired a base of 120,000 active subscribers (with notifications on for 30% of the users; well above the YouTube benchmarks). This feat was acknowledged with a YouTube Silver Creator Award. The channel garnered over 30.7M views and 1.6M viewing hours with an average audience retention of 64% on each video. • For SRCP, consumer votes were the defining success metric. Season 2 of the activation saw the vote grow 4X to 2,00,000+ votes cast. The digital media campaign reached 105M users with 126M impressions and 16M engagements generated.
