To announce the launch of a promotional campaign featuring an international treasure hunt, Canadian Club invited media representatives to an adventure-themed press conference held at the private home of an antiquities and tribal art collector on Tuesday afternoon.
The downtown home, filled with rare artifacts like Egyptian mummies and shrunken heads, provided the worldly backdrop the whisky brand was after. “It’s about adventure,” LexPR consultant Robyn Goetz said of both the Hide A Case Adventure contest and the residence, owned by William Jamieson. “He’s had some parties in the past, so we were privy to the location and we asked him to rent it out to us."
LexPR invited about 40 food and beverage and lifestyle media, and bused in about 10 journalists from Windsor, where Canadian Club is headquartered. “It’s a small group, but it’s very focused,” Goetz said.
Kevin Brauch, host of The Thirsty Traveller and floor reporter on Iron Chef America, led the press conference and unveiled details of the competition—a new spin on the Hide a Case contest Canadian Club first launched in 1967 and ran until 1991. During that time period, the company hid 25 cases of whisky in remote locations. Cases were discovered at Mt. Kilimanjaro, Angel Falls, the Great Barrier Reef, St. Helena Island, and in New York City. However, nine cases are still missing and believed to be in the Yukon Territory, at the North Pole, at Loch Ness, and on Robinson Crusoe Island.
The campaign, which includes an Internet component, will give four Canadians and four Americans the opportunity to qualify and compete for the chance to go on a treasure hunt to find one of those missing cases in April 2011. The winner will bring home $100,000 in prize money.
“Canadian Club has an amazing, adventurous history,” said Dorene Wharton, marketing director for Beam Global Spirits & Wine Inc., which distributes the whisky in Canada. “We are synonymous with adventure.” Wharton said the campaign, which launches Monday, is meant to inspire people to embark on their own adventure to find a missing case.
To set the scene at Tuesday's announcement, brand ambassadors dressed in Canadian Club gear handed out three specialty drinks, dubbed Brave Cocktails, and servers passed hors d’oeuvres with wild mushrooms, wild salmon, and wild boar from L-Eat Catering. Invitations created by LexPR were fashioned out of fabric scrolls bearing an image of Canadian Club’s lost and found map, which vaguely identifies the locations of the 25 cases hidden during the original competition. Guests had to use a light pen to reveal the hidden details of the location for the press conference. A similar launch event will be held in New York on Thursday.