Recently at New York’s trendy Room Service night club, Crown Royal announced their partnership with Antwan “Big Boi” Patton and their new multi-tiered campaign “The Crown Life,” an opportunity for Crown Royal to connect with their customers from three angles: lifestyle, nightlife and the signature purple and, now, black bags.
Roderick Blaylock, Diageo’s senior brand manager for Crown Royal, said, “Lifestyle is the advertising and the partnerships with influencers like Big Boi. Nightlife is really being on the scene in bars and night clubs to give consumers an experience with Crown Royal. Finally, as long as you keep doing creative and innovative things with that purple or black bag, people love it. This is the way that we keep connecting with consumers through these three components.”
“In this day and age with the music business being the way it is, it is good that you can find solid business partners,” said Big Boi. “An artist should believe in the brands that they support, that way you can wholeheartedly embrace them.
Crown Royal has a great team. They treat me well, and it allowed me to bring the two worlds together — the music business and the beverage industry. Crown Royal and I launched the ‘Be Still’ video together with Janelle Monae by going around the country and spreading the word about the design of the new bag,” explained Big Boi. The “new bag” that Big Boi referred to is the bag for Crown Royal Black that he worked hands-on with the design team to create.
Big Boi answered questions from a roundtable of journalists from various media outlets. There were signature Crown Royal Black cocktails, and, afterward, everyone was treated to a live performance that evening by Big Boi.
When asked how he would describe “The Crown Life,” Big Boi replied, “Living life the way you want to live it and celebrating responsibly the small intimate moments that life has to offer, like when my child runs in the house and says, ‘Daddy, I made an A on a test’ that they studied hard for. I’ll drink to that.”
Crown Royal continues to find that spark to connect with its clients, and this new campaign is just one of many ways they stay connected to urban America. Look for the Crown Life event coming to your area soon.
–al weems
