Maker’s Mark
Maker’s Mark created the premium bourbon category. In 1965, they launched an advertising campaign that was simply an image of the bottle with the line: “It tastes expensive... and is.” What has followed has been decades of beautiful, consistent bourbon and clever marketing to match. Lucky for me, Maker’s Mark was the primary account I worked on during my tenure at Doe-Anderson. I was involved in Social Media, OOH boards, PR campaigns, photo/video shoots, and more. As you would imagine with a brand in the Beam Suntory portfolio, everything started with a strategic brief and ended with consistent creative to build on their legacy and bring the next generation of bourbon drinkers into the fold. Here are some highlights.
Maker's Mark was looking to make a big splash in the holiday season with a new twist on an old holiday tradition. Maker's already has a great thing going with the little bottle sweaters, so I thought "Let's lean into it" and reimagine (human-sized) holiday sweaters. The resulting collaboration with The Endery was stunning. It was written about by Forbes, Adweek, and more
This won 3 ADC • Global Awards & Club merit awards in the Design For Good, Patterns & Textiles, and Eco-friendly Fashion categories.
Here is an OOH board in Louisville's airport that I wrote advertising a program where Maker's would reimburse you for a checked bag if you brought a bottle home for the holidays. For those that haven't been to SDF, this board is right before security, hence the confiscation joke.
Of course, there have been lots of social concepts and captions.
The slam dunk at the top was posted during the NBA dunk competition and was the best-performing Maker's Mark post ever at the time. The video below was a play on the covid derby and social distancing. Make sure to press play on the top two.
Maker’s Mark continues to get better with age. I was thrilled to be a small part of their journey.
