Top-shelf whisky — and whiskey — brands are reaching for a familiar combination of ingredients as they seek to recruit younger consumers into category customers.Premium blended Scotch brand Chivas Regal, a sponsor of Ferrari’s Formula 1 team since 2024, recently launched a new ad built around driver Charles Leclerc.
Running across TV, paid social and out-of-home, it showcases a limited edition of the whisky (aged for 16 years, a reference to Leclerc’s driver number) and a board game specially designed and manufactured for Leclerc; the driver is a chess nut when he’s away from the track.
Chivas isn’t a stranger to sports. The marque has been active in soccer for several years, backing first Manchester United and more recently, Arsenal. But Formula 1 presented the brand with an opportunity to “talk to fans in a different way,” and make a virtue of the category’s relegation to off-pitch spaces, according to global brand director Oyin Akiniyi.
“Our strategy has always been to be additive and add value to fan experiences, to fan culture, and give them something that they can’t get anywhere else,” she said.
Dubbed “SE!ZE” — another reference to the number 16 — the board game will be on show at series of pop-ups staged at Grand Prixes later this season and will eventually be made available to fans, according to Rebecca Gordon, co-founder and partner at Baby Teeth, the creative and production company behind the campaign.
