RAPT Creative has rolled out a refined and re-imagined Month of Comedy for Irish whiskey brand, Jameson.

The brand had launched its Month of Comedy platform in 2021 with an April Fools' prank on social media channels announcing that it had developed a skin-care range.

According to Brand Manager, Vuyisile Dlepu, comedy was the ideal marketing platform to demonstrate the brand’s personality, saying that Jameson is the serious whiskey that does not take itself too seriously.

“2021 saw us create a really exciting campaign which left many wondering what else we would be coming up with. The 2022 campaign we tasked RAPT Creative to come up with needed to be equally as impactful to keep Jameson top-of-mind long after it ended,” he explained.

The Jameson brand is open, charismatic, honest, light-hearted and witty. The question RAPT Creative needed to answer for the 2022 campaign was ‘how can comedy widen Jameson’s circle of connections?’

“The answer lay – rather unfortunately – in the fact that friends of Jameson have gone and are going through a lot as a country. By positioning Jameson as the nation’s therapist; the agency would widen the circle of connections by bringing us together to laugh at the things that may weigh heavy on the collective spirit or tear it apart,” says Dlepu.

To implement the strategy, RAPT Creative is turning to social media channels to launch ‘Isikhokho se Skits’ or ‘The Dogs of Skits’. It has partnered with creators Sipho Muchindu, Khanyisa Unfiltered and Primo9teen who specialise in comedic content on Twitter and Instagram Reels and will pit them head-to-head in a bid to find one winner for Skits-land. This portion of the campaign broke late in May (May 23).

During the pre-awareness phase (which broke earlier in the month), Jameson asked its friends and fans to suggest topics they’d like to see the skits focus on, and selected the funniest which were on-brand to brief the creators.

These were filmed and ‘broadcast’, after which the audience was challenged to submit their own skits. The best were rewarded with Jameson hampers and their skits added to the Jameson channels.

In this way, Jameson’s Month of Comedy not only gave the brand’s friends, fans and a broader audience more to laugh at when they needed to, it was able to engage with them in a space where we know they consume their laughs.

“Best of all, viewing the skits they created and sent in gave us considerable insight into the state of the Mzansi psyche. And we’ll be using this information and guide our relationship with them in the months ahead,” concluded Dlepu.

-- ENDS --

About Irish Distillers
Irish Distillers is Ireland’s leading supplier of spirits and wines, and producer of some of the world’s most well-known and successful Irish whiskeys. Led by Jameson, our brands are driving the global renaissance of Irish whiskey. Jameson is the world’s bestselling Irish whiskey, experiencing 30 years of consecutive growth up to 2019 and hitting sales of 8.6m cases in 2021. Our brands are exported to 130+ markets.

Irish Distillers was formed in 1966, when a merger took place between John Power & Son, John Jameson & Son and Cork Distilleries Company. In 1988 Irish Distillers joined Pernod Ricard, gaining access to unprecedented levels of investment and an extensive global distribution network. Since 2012, we have invested over €400 million to double our production and bottling capacity to meet global demand for our products.

We employ over 600 people across our operations in Cork and Dublin.

About Pernod Ricard
Pernod Ricard South Africa is part of the Pernod Ricard group, the No.2 worldwide producer of wines and spirits with consolidated sales of €8,824 million in FY21. Headquartered in France, we are a truly international group. Created in 1975 by the merger of Ricard and Pernod, the Group has developed through organic growth and acquisitions. We provide brands of origin such as Jameson Irish whiskey, Ballantine’s, Chivas Regal, The Glenlivet Scotch whiskies, Absolut vodka, Beefeater gin, Inverroche gin, Martell cognac, Red Heart rum and G.H. Mumm and Perrier-Jouët champagnes. Owning 16 of the Top 100 Spirits Brands, we hold one of the most prestigious and comprehensive brand portfolios in the industry. Our brands are distributed across 160+ markets and by our own salesforce in 73 markets. Our Group’s decentralised organisation empowers our 19,000 employees to be true, on-the-ground ambassadors of our vision of “Créateurs de Convivialité.”

In South Africa, Pernod Ricard has been building brands and creating conviviality for the past 27 years. After Nelson Mandela’s release and the subsequent birth of South Africa’s democracy, the lifting of international trade sanctions paved the way for renewed investment opportunities into the country and on the 8th of July 1994, Pernod Ricard South Africa was established. Over the past eleven years we also established affiliates in Namibia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Angola and Mozambique. The relocation of our head offices from Cape Town to Johannesburg united Pernod Ricard South Africa with Pernod Ricard Sub-Saharan Africa to establish the Pernod Ricard Sub-Saharan Africa Management Entity. We employ just under 500 people across Africa, with around 300 employees based in South Africa.

At Pernod Ricard our intent is to ‘Bring Good Times from a Good Place’ - to create a more convivial world, a world without excess. We have always been committed to fighting the harmful abuse of alcohol and we acknowledge that it is our responsibility to play an active part in preventing it and to each individually act as responsible brand ambassadors. As passionate hosts we bring people together to connect, share and celebrate in the spirit of conviviality. As respectful guests we strive to protect the environments in which we live, to the benefits of our consumers, our business and our planet. As reaffirmed by the Group’s strategic plan, “Transform and Accelerate” deployed in 2018, Pernod Ricard’s strategy focuses on investing in long-term, profitable growth for all stakeholders. We remain true to our three founding values: entrepreneurial spirit, mutual trust, and a strong sense of ethics.