In May of 2022, Jack Daniel’s launched the Bonded Series, a new, permanent line within the Jack Daniel’s product portfolio. This is part of a long-term effort to expand the brand’s super premium offerings. As the name would imply, both expressions launched are Bottled-In-Bond, which must be distilled by a single distiller during a single distillation season, matured in government bonded warehouse for at least 4 years, and bottled at 100 proof.

When launching the expression, there was a lot of focus on digital. I worked directly with the global team since the US was one of the first markets to launch. A much deserved shout out to Jessica Fergen and Jessica Mazzonetto for collaborating with the US&C team. We worked together on what specs we would need based on our tactical recommendations from our media agency. Of course, we were sure to ask for the layered files as opportunities always arise.

We had plenty of digital plans other than our paid media plan. We worked with our US creative agency to build out a custom website experience. We also worked with our partners at Reserve Bar to build a custom page and offer a special preorder bundle to consumers. The preorders sold out in under 90 minutes after Reserve Bar sent out their social update. And we were sure to send out the heads up to our organic base, including social, email, and our Squire group.

There was one more piece which was a bit new to the brand. We had just onboarded a new influencer agency for the entire Brown-Forman portfolio and as per usual, Jack Daniel’s was the first brand to implement a larger campaign. While I have to give all credit to Svend (PR) and Mary Beth (Brand Manager) for writing the initial brief, I handled the execution, including building the process from scratch with the help of Ketchum Agency and Brown-Forman Legal/Compliance. There were certainly learning experiences, but overall, it was a very successful launch, leading the way to similar local activations based on the national plan.