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Brown-Forman is a global spirits and wine company and owner of Jack Daniel’s, one of the most recognisable whiskey brands in the world. With its distinctive Tennessee Whiskey profile, Jack Daniel’s has strong brand assets and high familiarity - a huge challenge for diversifying the product range.

 

Category

Consumer Packaged Goods

Industry

Alcohol, Distillery

Market

UK

Platform

Facebook / Meta

The Challenge

Brown-Forman launched Jack Daniel’s Flavours in the UK with a clear growth barrier: high familiarity can reduce curiosity. Consumers already “knew” Jack Daniel’s, while the Flavours range needed to create fresh consideration and trial without losing brand consistency. The approach also needed to be “globally led, locally infused” - with strong local relevance to the UK market.

For Megan Davies, Digital Marketing Lead for UK and Ireland, Brown-Forman, the digital ads campaign needed to deliver more than reach. The team was looking for in-flight learning that explained which creative choices drove outcomes across platforms, so future creative decisions could be made with evidence rather than instinct.

Automated Creative stepped in to optimise the ads, and not only.

Key Obstacles

  • Deeply entrenched brand perceptions
  • Navigating a fragmented, multi-channel media landscape
  • Limited capacity for specific market localisation
quote-icon-1 "This kind of messaging testing really helps us fuel and feed into [the brand] toolkits and make sure we're driving the best creative messaging that then goes out across the different markets. We're really excited about the results with Automated Creative. It's a real step change to the way that we are approaching messaging and creative and how we talk to our consumers."

Laura McCarthy

Global Marketing Manager

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The Strategy

Brown Forman was looking for a product launch that targeted the right audience and delivered key insights about what ad creative works and why.

We produced dynamic ads, personalised by platform. This allowed Brown-Forman to test different themes and adjust in-flight with the elements that performed best.

Combining creative media expertise with automation, we were able to deliver three immediate benefits:

Speed - Automated Creative rapidly produced and deployed large numbers of on-brand ad variations, specifically tailored for each platform

Clarity - our platform delivered clear insights into the messages, visuals, and context that drove the best response. Automated Creative took the guesswork out of Brown Forman's media go-to-market

Performance - as the campaign progressed, the AC team continually optimised campaign assets based on the live insight delivered by our platform, as well as the feedback provided by Brown Forman.

  • +170%

    Increase in Meta ad performance against benchmark 

     

  • +33%

    Increase in ad click-through rate

     

  • 4x 

    More clicks than against benchmark

     

Brown Forman: The Results

The campaign exceeded platform benchmarks, delivering performance equivalent to 2–3x additional media spend. Results included uplifts in click-through rate and improvement versus benchmarks on Meta and Snapchat.

There were also interesting, actionable ad insights. Surprisingly, the best-performing territory turned out not to be serve education, range, refreshment, or occasion. It was targeting “non-whiskey drinkers”. The Flavours range effectively bridges the gap for people turned off by whiskey, competing more with flavoured spirits like gin/vodka in perception and entry-point appeal.

Megan also wanted to improve the way Brown-Forman worked on digital ads: “We turned to Automated Creative so we could stop running a one-way campaign plan and instead build a loop where we test creative, learn fast, and keep refining what works.”

For Laura McCarthy, Global Marketing Manager, this was also an opportunity to understand how different messaging lands on different platforms. New data insights that deliver value not just for the Flavours range, but also for Jack Daniel’s as a whole.

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