Smirnoff is this week launching its first direct marketing push
with a Christmas campaign for its Black brand through Evans Hunt
Scott.
Smirnoff Black drinkers will be sent a pack containing four Christmas
cards that feature traditional Christmas images art directed to look
dark and faintly sinister. Recipients will also be given the chance to
send off for two branded champagne flutes by confirming their details,
and become members of the black.out events club.
The pack copy alludes to standard Christmas and millennium cliches,
suggesting that Smirnoff Black is the ideal antidote to such
nonsense.
’After the maelstrom of Ambassadors’ Receptions and office shenanigans,’
it reads, ’after Cliff and Robbie have slugged it out with the Artist
Formerly Known As, you’ll be able to start the next thousand years in
style with Smirnoff Black.’
The pack copy goes on to remind Smirnoff Black drinkers that it’s a
smooth, mellow vodka which should be drunk neat and frozen on special
occasions.
The main purpose of the campaign is to check drinkers’ contact
information, asking them to confirm their details through the special
offer mechanism.
The target audience, according to EHS, is ’trendy urbanites’, aged
between 25 and 40 years old who have responded to Black promotions over
the past year.
Terry Hunt, the chairman of EHS, explained: ’These people go to the most
fashionable bars, they wear designer labels, and they’re both cynical
and ad-literate.’
The Smirnoff Black pack was written by Nick Moffat and art directed by
Tristan Sellen at EHS.
