Captain Morgan Flips the Script on Accountable Ingesting PSAs

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In mid-March, Guinness advised St. Patrick’s Day revelers drink much less. Properly, for transparency, it truly advised they fight its nonalcoholic beer Guinness 0.0 as a substitute.

Now, Captain Morgan—additionally owned by drinks behemoth Diageo—has launched its largest-ever accountable consuming marketing campaign, with assist from Vice-owned company Advantage.

The spiced rum model has enlisted singer, songwriter and rapper Bree Runway to entrance a zesty spot imploring prospects all over the world to “Get pleasure from Gradual” and reasonable their consuming.

This would possibly sound stunning for a mother or father enterprise that reported gross sales of $11.4 billion in 2022 (the bulk of which had been alcoholic drinks), however truly it’s not. That’s as a result of Diageo has set itself the goal of reaching 1 billion shoppers with moderation messages by 2030, a part of its ESG framework.

Throughout its portfolio, the enterprise has been bringing a bit extra artistic aptitude to the desk on the subject of moderation campaigns. Up to now 12 months, this has included Smirnoff’s playful, festive “Drops of Recommendation” content material sequence and a putting print marketing campaign focused towards U.Okay. college college students.

Now, Captain Morgan is continuous this pattern of placing the identical artistic effort into accountable consuming messages that it does brand-building.

Following a complete model refresh in 2022, which noticed the spirit maker embrace the tagline “Spice On” and produce a little bit of positivity and chew to the class, “Get pleasure from Gradual” encourages drinkers to set their very own tempo, sip slowly, and never be afraid to say no to a drink or one other spherical.

The hero movie exhibits Runway, who was simply featured on the quilt of Rolling Stone U.Okay. and is supporting Lizzo on her European tour, at a celebration. She’s supplied one other drink, however taking part in on her status for musical mashups, the artist declines and says, “Nah, I’m taking it gradual,” earlier than opening her personal rendition of ’90s dance basic “Rhythm of the Evening.”

Samori Gambrah, international model director at Captain Morgan, advised Adweek that the ambition was to normalize consuming much less in social settings as one thing “aspirational.”

“We needed to make one thing that was culturally related in addition to enjoyable,” he added. “However we needed to do it in our personal tone of voice.”