Chivas Regal launches ‘male-friendship’ web series
Chivas Regal is launching a branded web series on male friendship two years on from first announcing its ambition to create a feature-length movie to resonate with young males.
The luxury scotch whiskey brand has partnered with Esquire magazine to distribute the 12-part “Brotherhood” series focusing on modern male friendship. The premise is set-up by a pilot, available on YouTube, which introduces four real-life men from creative backgrounds such as film, art, fashion, catering, and music. Scenes of the friends eating and drinking with one another are interspersed with interviews about their thoughts on friendship.
It features Saturday Night Live star Jason Sudeikis as one of the friends and is being promoted through the Esquire Network portal. Chivas Regal says the content push “celebrates the modern gentleman movement”, a lifestyle trend of fashion-conscious men it has attempted to mine over the last 18 months to extend the appeal of Scotch whisky to younger drinkers.
The series, produced by The Story Lab, builds on a concept first formed in 2011 when the brand launched two short films focusing on four fictional friends. At the time, it told Marketing Week the ultimate aim was to use the characters in a series and possibly adapt it for the big-screen in way “that’s still attributable to Chivas but isn’t branded in an advert.”
Chivas Regal held back on the plans in 2012, choosing instead to strengthen its ties to films by funding several productions including a project by actor and director Gael Garcia Bernal.
The brand’s renewed focus on content is part of a wider push from drinks makers to insert their brands into real-life drinking occasions. Earlier this year, Diageo said it wanted to replicate the success of how shows such as the Jamie Oliver’s “The Naked Chef” and “Nigella’s Kitchen” had been able to put food at the center of real occasions through its upcoming activity for 2014.