The twelfth blog: Bokma

Today I decided to analyze a local brand (for me). It’s called Bokma and comes from The Netherlands. You probably noticed I am dutch by my incoherent rambling before, alas feel free to make childish comments about legal weed and clogs in the comments below.

Bokma. The name comes from the surname of the Bokma family. Freerk Klazes Bokma was granted permission to establish a distillery on De Tuinen in Leeuwarden in 1894. He operated this business in addition to his bakery shop. This is where Bokma was destilled for many years.

Bokma has a rich history when it comes to advertising which I will talk about in this blog. In 1900 Pieter Bokma recognised the importance of advertising your brand. The company’s financial records show that Pieter invested heavily in advertising from the very beginning. Bottles and crates were labelled ‘P.Bokma, distillateur, Leeuwarden’ and, from 1904, simply ‘P.Bokma, Leeuwarden’. The importance of advertising increased after World War II. The advertising of Bokma Genever received increasingly more attention after the takeover by Heineken, resulting in several memorable advertising slogans, like: “Bokma, the best thing under the cork”, “Square in the bottle, round on the tongue” and ” Sweetheart, is the Bokma cold?”.

Commercial:

In this commercial we see a man which car is broken. He pushes it towards the nearest telephone cell and the when you think he is about to call for help, he calls his wife and says “Schat, staat de Bokma koud?” which is dutch for the aformentioned slogan “Sweetheart, is the Bokma cold?”. The humor in this commercial is that nobody thinks about Bokma when he has a car breakdown and this man does. He puts his worries about his Bokma getting warm before actually seeking help with his car.

The eleventh blog: Disaronno

Today we are going to analyze a liquor brand called Disaronno. Disaronno comes from Italy and was originally called ” Amaretto di Saronno” which means “Amaretto from Saronno”, which is where Disaronno is still made today. For marketing reasons, however, the name was changed to “Disaronno Originale”.

I’ve drank Disaronno myself and it tastes a bit like the dutch “bitterkoekjes” and is very nice to mix with cola. When we load the official site we already see what Disaronno is all about. The burning Italian passion of men for women and visa versa. It’s the perfect drink to drink with your lover. The site has an overall slick design, perfectly mirroring what makes Italian brands so great, temptation (just look at brands like Ferrari). The site contains smoking hot women and wealthy, independent men which women probably find superattractive too. A big letdown is that the ENTIRE site is Italian and there is no option to change the language to English. So I guess it is true, those Italians are pretty arrogant snobs. Well I have to analyze a commercial than, but don’t worry Disaronno I still like to drink you….

In this commercial we see some cool bartender and an italiana with a very tight ponytail (that must really hurt) and her friends. They order of course *SUPRISE* Disaronno and the bartender pours it into their glasses while saying the names of the tastes in the predictable James Bond-esque low voice. The women orders Disaronno on ice and the bartender looks her into the eyes in a tempting way and pours it into here glass. The women takes the glass and sniffs the Disaronno like she is a great Amaretto expert. She laughs with her friends and puts the empty glass back on the bar. The bartender takes the glass and she puts her hand on his hand and he looks at her. Then the magic happens, she takes an ice cube and chews on it in a very sensual, sexy way. The bartender looks like he is about to jizz his pants any moment and the commercial ends with her laughing with her friends and an outro shot of Disaronno.

This commercial really shows what Disaronno is about, temptation. It’s nothing like Jägermeister or Southern Comfort. This drinks wants to take you on a ride of passion and flirting.

The tenth blog: Goldstrike

Goldstrike is a popular dutch beverage with cinnamon flavor and 24-karat gold snippets and an individual drinking method: “Shake, Shoot and Strike”. The liquid tastes like cinnamon candy.

A fun marketingtrick of Gold Strike is that the flasks contain flakes of 23.5 karat gold, which explain the “gold” part from the name. The gold flakes present little health risk. Some people believe that Gold Strike’s gold flakes cut the throat or stomach upon ingestion, allowing the alcohol to directly enter the bloodstream for quicker intoxication. This rumor can be direct to the land of fables, because gold is known for its softness and malleability, and given that the flakes do not have sharp edges, no such things occur and this rumor is clearly false.

Gold Strike’s marketing theme is the american wild-west around 1849 and the site clearly says so. The beverage is drunk pure by first shaking your shotglass with a coin on it, then drink it up in 1 take and at last strike your shotglass on he bar.

It is clear that Gold Strike uses a quite original marketing strategy for a dutch liquor brand. Nobody does something like this alike in Holland and it reminds of American Marketing (which is a few years ahead). Gold Strike has a high alcohol percentage of 50% and does a great job on taking you to the wild, wild-west of the good ol’ days.

The ninth blog: Cointreau

This one is about the drink with the easy to remind name, Cointreau. Seriously say this five times in a row and you spew your breakfast all over your keyboard and your cheeks fall off from exhaustion. But let’s keep my opinion about the name in my giant little fortress called: “my mind”. Set tight y’all because I’m about to survey the brand: Cointreau!

How did they get that lame name anyway, you might ask yourself. Well that’s easy to seek out: “Cointreau Distillery was set up in 1849 by Adolphe Cointreau, a confectioner, and his brother Edouard-Jean Cointreau from Angers. Their first success was with the cherry liqueur, guignolet, but it was when they concocted a blend of sweet and bitter orange peels and pure alcohol from sugar beets that the success of the enterprise was definitively confirmed”. Wikipedia again, owns all. The name is the surname from the founder.

With that sorted out we can now continue. Cointreau’s slogan is: “Be cointreauversial” as is seen on the official site. The drink is obviously not centered around people in their twenties like other drinks I talked about earlier. This one is for people in their thirties / fourties that don’t care about what others think, the slogan proves that. Cointreau also says that you can use their liquor in your cooking recipes. That’s pretty original and not every beverage does that. The drink has it’s origins in France and it is seen in the overall campagnes of the drink, like: “Voules-vous Cointreau avec moi”.

The drink is now more centered around elegant, expressional women. You can see this because the new brand ambassador is Dita von Teese, which is a pretty elegant women.

The eight blog: Jägermeister

I hope you have enjoyed from my first blog. This blog is about Jägermeister. This originally German liguor contains 35% of alcohol. I promise you, it gives a real hangover the follow morning.

The name comes from a term introduced in 1934 in the “Reich hunting law”. The term was applied to senior foresters and gamekeepers in Germany. Curt Mast, the inventor of Jägermeister, was an hunter, so that’s where the name comes from.

When you look to the logo you will see a cross and a reindeer both, rare things for to use in a logo. The typical things makes the logo authentic and original. The color of the drink is red. The color of the bottle of the drink is green with a white label on the front. At the label see you the logo and the name of the drink: Jägermeister.

The drink tastes cold the best. I prefer to drink on cold winter nights and these colors really represent the German feel of the drink, this is not a drink for the summer.

Before I go the website of Jägermeister, I must answer on the question: What’s your birthday and country of residence? The website promotes responsible drinking. You read at the top of the website the follow famous sense: ‘’Geniet, maar drink met mate’’ also ‘’enjoy drinking, but drink in moderation.

In this commercial we see three nice looking ladies who order Jägermeister into a cold looking bar. The bartender clearly likes them and serves them 3 shots of Jägermeister. When the girls drinking, their nipples turn extremely hard, because Jägermeister is such a cold liquor. Jägermeister’s point clearly comes across… This drink let’s you experience the power of the German winter and the brand positions itself for people who are in their twenties as you can see by the people who play a role in this commercial.

The seventh blog: Crown royal

\For the next weblog i’m going to talk about a really luxurious whisky, named Crown Royal. This one is not available in the Netherlands and most drinked by Americans and Canadians (as it was founded in Canada). But still a fun brand to talk about nonetheless.

Let’s take a look at how Diageo (the manufacturer) positions her drink in the whisky market. Crown Royal is a really, really exclusive whiskey. The name speaks for itself, it’s a whiskey mainly for people which huge amounts of money and kings and queens. My jaw falls down on the floor when I look at the bottle design… This ladies and gentlemen is how you make your drink exclusive. The bottle looks really loyal and is pretty decorated. A real piece of art, even when empty. Crown Royal’s slogan is: “For every king, a crown.”. Crown Royal positions itself as a drink which is a reward for people who made it through their hard work and want to celebrate that, the slogan shows this.

Now let’s go to the website. Of course it opens with the traditional agegate. After filling in your age it takes you to the homepage. The homepage says: “Crown Royal: Society of the Crown” which, again, proves how luxurious this drink is. You can also see here that Crown Royal sponsors a NASCAR racer named Matt Kenseth. An interesting, original choice. You can even inscribe a personal message for someone you care about on a Crown Royal bag or bottle label, which shows America and Canada ar far beyond Europe and our ways of marketing. The website also list some “Masters of Whiskies” which are people who work as blenders for Crown Royal and tells you their story.