Better and Faster by Jeremy Gutsche

Author:Jeremy Gutsche [Gutsche, Jeremy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-385-34655-9
Publisher: Penguin Random House LLC
Published: 2015-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

THE REBIRTHING OF A BADASS BRAND

More than a century and a half ago, a long-bearded man named Hiram Walker made his first moonshine, and it was fantastic. He knew a whiskey venture could become his next big business, and in 1858, he built a distillery just over the border from Detroit in Windsor, Canada. Hiram Walker’s Club Whiskey quickly took off. His was good whiskey—and even better branding. He’d added the word “club” to the name to play off the popular trend of imbibing in nineteenth-century gentlemen’s clubs—the upscale, wood-paneled parlors of choice for men of distinction (not to be confused with today’s neon-lit gentlemen’s clubs that confer less distinction). Walker’s “Club” branding paid off, becoming the top choice of patrons in both Canada and the United States.

The Canadian-based distillery was soon dominating its American competition, which responded by lobbying the U. S. government to force beverage brands to state their country of origin. But the defensive move backfired. In 1889, Walker’s brilliantly rebranded Canadian Club Whisky acquired cachet as an imported luxury.

The Canadian Club factory was fueling so much trade that a company town, later named Walkerville, sprang up around the factory in 1890. Hiram Walker controlled it all, from police and fire department to religious services. He even built a church, but when the pastor spoke of the evils of alcohol, the church was abruptly closed. During the years of prohibition—long after Walker’s death in 1899—his sons took the reins. Canadian Club’s popularity exploded, becoming the contraband of choice for Al Capone, among others, who made millions smuggling the whiskey into the United States.

That advantage held for generations. Post-prohibition, Canadian Club was an American favorite for several decades, especially the 1960s when Canadian Club was still the whiskey of choice for New Yorkers who saw the logo shining down on Times Square. But like so many companies that reflect back on their glory days, the brand eventually lost its luster. Between its 1960s heyday and 2005, sales fell nearly 50 percent. In 2005, Canadian Club was acquired by Fortune Brands (later Beam Inc.), and a familiar strategy soon reemerged: The company would spark renewal by reaching back into the whiskey’s colorful and prosperous past.

Emerging from the shadows of an oak-walled boardroom, a mustachioed, macho father figure speaks to the camera. With glass in hand and a mischievous smile on his face, he strolls through a nineteenth-century mansion. “When America had this terrible idea called prohibition, Canada helped the U.S. out. Canadian Club was the most bootlegged whiskey in the states, and if there’s one thing that tastes better than whiskey, it’s smuggled whiskey.” He explains, “I’m the Canadian Club Chairman. You’re welcome.” The catchy video is an advertisement, of course, and the fictional “Club Chairman,” referred to by Jim Beam’s branding committee as the “Badass Gentleman,” soon became a potent symbol for the brand’s playful, retro reincarnation.

Canadian Club’s retro rebirth was also aided first by the popularity of Mad Men, in which suave ad exec Donald Draper seems

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