With the uplifting of the blanket ban on liquor promotion and advertisement and with the introduction of more sophisticated guidelines, India’s liquor market has consistently come up with innovative and tricky ideas for the advertisement of alcohol.
India has had a long history of advertising complications of liquor, and while it is the third biggest market of alcohol in the world, India still sports stricter and non-fluid regulations regarding the promotion and advertisement of alcohol. India’s policies on promotion of liquor brands on social media have only prompted Indian companies to take a secondary approach.
With that being said, Indian companies have always had an ace up their sleeve!
We shall discuss some very effective, not to mention completely legal ways to promote liquor brands on social media in a few of the best alcohol marketing campaigns 2020.
Shadow Advertisements
Act of Cutting Corners with your Marketing
One of the most basic approaches is indirectly linking or promoting something which doesn’t have any direct connection to liquor. Let’s take the example of arguably the most famous brand of alcohol in India, Kingfisher. Kingfisher is a master of indirect advertisement of liquor. We are all very familiar with its earworm of a jingle campaign, but a critical takeaway is the ingenious use of famous personalities and clever alcohol marketing techniques to imprint the name of the brand on the minds of customers. So without even directly catering to alcohol or even talking about alcohol, brands can execute well-thought campaigns or posts on social media that create a brand name rather than talking about the product itself.
This is the reason that you can guess the company being addressed even when the tune is expressed in words, “Ooh la la la la le O”.
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Surrogate Branding
Form of Advertising Which is used to Promote Banned Products
Another extremely effective alcohol marketing strategy is the use of surrogate branding. In this strategy, companies organize and execute events, labels, and shows while not directly addressing their product. Again, this uses the simple trick of directing the audience’s attention to the brand at large rather than its product by incorporating and playing to the popular entertainment mediums. This is another completely legal way of advertising liquor since the company only targets people above the legal drinking age.
Some very well-known examples include Smirnoff Experience (music event) by Smirnoff and The Journey (For Art, Music Connoisseurs) by Johnnie Walker.
Social media is a wonderful place to fully realize the potential of surrogate branding. Companies can choose platforms like Facebook and Google to target specific audiences and build a viable database of users above LDA which can further be used in future campaigns.
Responsible Marketing
Building Trust Between the Company and its Customers
Social media can be a terrific way to boost your sales legally, all that is asked is the companies understand their social responsibility.
Therefore when White Owl Beer promotes itself on its Instagram page as an “award-winning, locally-handcrafted beer”, it also goes on to specify in its description to follow them only if you’re above the legal drinking age. And while there are gray areas as to who these advertisements reach, platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook can be very effective and legal means to promote liquor.
Post lockdown, the alcohol industry witnessed unprecedented challenges, especially in India. To conquer them and the unforeseen ones yet to come, Social Eyes, as the best social media marketing agency, adopts unique ways to deliver the best results in the realm of social media.