Recently, Crown Royal announced their partnership with Antwan “Big Boi” Patton at the trendy Room Service night club in New York. While there, rolling out spoke with Roderick Blaylock, Diageo’s senior brand manager for Crown Royal. Listen to what he had to say about this outstanding partnership. –al weems
How did you create the “Crown Life” initiative?
What “crown” stands for is royalty, so the whole idea of the program is to find that spark that connects with consumers. We do this in three ways: lifestyle, nightlife and the third piece is that everyone knows the brand through the purple and, now, the black bag. 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.
How has the Crown Royal brand continued to stay relevant over the years?
It’s the heritage and the quality of the liquor. Crown Royal is a wonderful product, so it has stayed around. It is a classic. What we are doing now is introducing consumers to Crown Royal Black. It is a bolder version of Crown Royal. It is new, and it launched a year ago. Crown Royal Black allows us to give new consumers a chance to engage with the brand, as well as gives consumers who haven’t had Crown Royal in a while a new way to interact with the brand. It’s all about the heritage and the quality of the beverage.
What can consumers expect as the “Crown Life” platform evolves?
Consumers can continue to expect Diageo to have lifestyle events centered around Crown Royal. We will be at the heart of lifestyle. We will be in nightlife as well — night clubs and bars where people get their lifestyle cues from. We will continue to follow the purple bag formula. Everyone loves bags. Everyone loves the Crown Royal bag. It is our competitive advantage. Our consumers have asked for this, and we will continue to give it to them. These are the three components that we will continue to adhere to and use to keep connecting with our consumers, so they can celebrate responsibly.
