Bacardi targets young drinkers
Bacardi-Martini is targeting the youth market by appointing Debbie Kelly, the head of its leisure division, as its first experiential marketing controller.
Working across all the Bacardi-Martini brands, Kelly’s brief is to promote the company’s brand portfolio to 18to 24-year-olds by “bringing the brands to life through pioneering events-based marketing”.
She will be responsible for overseeing the promotion of the Bacardi rum B-Bar at music festivals across the country as well as building on the success of last year’s VIVID concept, a “sensory tent” which was used to promote Bacardi Breezer at the V2000 festival.
Kelly joined Bacardi in 1998 from United Distillers, where she was customer manager with responsibility for leisure and student accounts.
As head of the Southampton-based company’s leisure division, she helped increase distribution and awareness of Bacardi-Martini products through sponsorship and student club tours such as the Metz Judderman Ball Tour. Kelly says: “Bacardi-Martini recognises that consumers want to experience brands in a multi-sensory way, and understands the importance of creating events to deliver this.
“I will be bringing a fun, social and interactive element to all the Bacardi-Martini products, taking the consumer to a deeper level of understanding of what our brands are really about.”
Bacardi-Martini also announced this week that it has renewed the Martini brand’s global sponsorship of the Ford World Rally Team for the 2001 FIA World Rally Championship.
