After a successful live tasting from London in 2007 we took live webTV one step further by broadcasting a tasting live from the Laphroaig bonded warehouse on the remote Scottish Island of Islay.
A total of 11,666 computers logged into the live broadcast from as far afield as Ethiopia, Botswana, Jamaica and Peru and between them posed over 700 questions. The top five countries viewing the programme were the UK, USA, Sweden, Germany and Canada. The live tasting was led by world-renowned whisky expert and food and drinks writer Martine Nouet, Laphroaig master blender Robert Hicks and distillery manager John Campbell. New rare styles of Laphroaig including Laphroaig Cairdeas were tasted along with the well-known favorites Quarter Cask and 10 Year Old. The panel of experts was joined by a small number of Laphroaig’s ‘Friends’ club who were able to gain a peek into the distillery itself.
markettiers4dc devised a high-tech solution to support the message of a traditional brand by broadcasting a live whisky tasting via satellite from a remote location. The programme ran on Laphroaig’s own Friends website and was syndicated across a range of suitable sites. Partner sites included shortlist.com, Tiscali, My Village and the drinks industry bible Harpers. In addition to benefitting from a live audience the programme is available on-demand on a range of media partner sites.
Before the show we worked in partnership with our client VPH to promote the event and sure the logistically challenging event was delivered smoothly and to budget. In praise of the project Beam Global’s Scotch brand director, Michael Cockram says, “At Beam we continually look for innovative ways to build consumer support for our brands and boost profit opportunities in the on and off trade and we are pleased to be at the forefront of utilising online technology to achieve this for our number one Islay malt, Laphroaig. We strongly believe this is an effective way to increase ‘talkability’ around the brand, in line with our company aim of Building brands people want to talk about.”