Bacardi has turned to agency veterans Jeff Weiss and Paul Opperman of OW and Lee Daley former chief strategy officer of McCann, to try to revive Bacardi in the US.
The drinks giant recently appointed BETC London to handle its global account so it’s not clear if this is in partnership with the three (who all worked together on Bacardi for McCann way back) or if the new US arrangement is a holding operation.
But the new US team, which also handles Dewar’s whisky in the US for Bacardi, has stepped boldly into the breach; enlisting top director Jake Scott to produce a spin on the famous ‘Ciba Libre’ cocktail (rum and cola with lime).
It’s a somewhat rose-tinted view of one aspect of the Spanish-American War at the turn of the 20th century (a rather bloody affair – for the Spanish anyway – fuelled by the rabble-rousing newspapers of William Randolph Hearst).
But effective all the same. Watch out BETC!
