A re-energised new brand era

SPREADING THE BRANDS WINGS TO ACCELERATE GLOBAL GROWTH

Naked Grouse had become the fastest-growing contemporary blended whisky within the category, seeing double-digit growth over consecutive years. Our next challenge was to embrace the brands independent spirit, completely cut all ties to its Famous Grouse past and accelerate the brands global growth – building on the successes from the initial launch in 2017.

BRAND STRATEGY BASED ON CONSUMER INSIGHT AND BUSINESS NEEDS

Leading the brand strategy, underpinned with strong consumer insight, Kinship Creative revised and re-energised the brand proposition, brand world, brand messaging, product story and packaging design. The new identity and packaging design was driven as part of a strategic business need, to focus on the premium product story and to cement, the brand’s independence ‘To Live Naked’, free from convention.

CLEAR OBJECTIVES OF SUCCESS

To coincide with the 2021 brand and packaging redesign the Naked Malt brand world was developed to maintain recognition and growth. The opportunity was to drive awareness of the new brand positioning amongst a younger, affluent target audience whilst ensuring we cut-through the clutter of other brands with engaging, mass reaching formats.

SUCCESSFUL NEW MARKET EXPANSION AND EXISTING MARKET GROWTH

The brand is expanding into more and more global markets (currently 74 in total) and exceeding growth expectations in established markets. It has demonstrated even stronger than expected growth in existing markets such as the Nordics where there was apprehension over changing the design due to the recognition of the grouse. Exceptional growth has come from new markets such as China, which have largely been attributed to Naked Malt’s more premium 100% recycled packaging design.

STRENGTHENING THE IDEA OF LIVE NAKED

A 2021 UK campaign was created to include branded and product specific assets across static and digital 6 sheets, murals, social media assets and anti-graffiti communications. The campaign key visuals combine our photography assets with the addition of illustrations to strengthen the creative idea of ‘live Naked’ and the proposition of breaking free from convention – whereas the product key visuals express the freedom in enjoying whisky your way. The imagery puts the Naked Malt bottle centre stage and with a call to action to recruit the 25 –35yo experience seeker consumer.

The success of this campaign led to the update of a new global communications platform refresh including new key visuals and assets for markets to use launched early 2023.

“Working with Kinship is an enjoyable & refreshing experience. They are a design agency who will go the extra mile to get under the skin of your brand. Not only will they push and challenge your ambitions but they will work with you in partnership, always feeling like extended members of the team. They have an inspiring approach to branding and their meticulous planning and communication makes our job so much easier. The Naked Grouse relaunch has resulted in 21% brand growth and industry recognition with 7 prestigious whisky award wins within the first year.“

ELAINE MILLER – GLOBAL MARKETING MANAGER, NAKED GROUSE