Aussie agency Hunter wins Asia-Pacific bottling giant CCA’s Beam Global spirits brands

Asia-Pacific bottling giant Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA) has appointed Australian agency Hunter to handle its new premium alcohol brand division The Exchange without a pitch.

CCA sells and distributes a range of Beam Global premium spirits including Jim Beam, Canadian Club, Makers Mark and The Macallan. CCA also manufactures and distributes the best-selling ready-to-drink alcoholic mixer Jim Beam & Cola. CCA owns breweries in Fiji and Samoa and a distillery in Fiji, making Fiji Bitter, Vailima beer and Bounty Rum. In December 2013, CCA re-entered the premium beer market in Australia with a manufacturing joint venture with the Casella group.

CCA is one of the largest bottlers of non-alcoholic ready-to-drink beverages in the Asia-Pacific region and one of the world’s five major Coca-Cola bottlers. It operates in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Samoa.

“We wanted to challenge the way premium alcoholic brands are sold in Australia, and so we needed a creative partner that was used to challenging convention,” says Julian Train, CCA’s future brands manager for its licensed division. “Hunter appealed to us as an agency able to balance strategy and long-term thinking without resorting to the cookie-cutter solutions that are all too common in the industry.”

Hunter managing director Simon Hakim says: “Coca-Cola Amatil is the type of client we love to work with. They’re a challenger in this particular market and they’re not opposed to giving it a bit of a shake-up. That’s meant we’ve really been able to do the work we love doing for them.”