Submitted by The Romans

Strike The Right Note

Influencer Marketing

The Romans built a music-led launch campaign for Chivas Regal around Charles Leclerc at the piano, which the agency reports drove 5B+ global reach through coverage.

1k+pieces of global coverage
15m+views of content across social media
20m+reach through social media
5B+global reach through coverage

Case in 60 seconds

Chivas Regal wanted to appear in the hype and cultural titles it had set as targets, which meant a whisky launch had to arrive as culture rather than as drinks news.

The campaign appears to turn on the music interest that Charles Leclerc and Chivas Regal hold away from the track, because a driver at a piano gives culture editors a subject rather than a sponsorship.

The organizing thesis matched piano notes to whisky notes, so that Leclerc's creative side and the product's tasting vocabulary carried the same launch story in one execution.

Leclerc was filmed playing the piano in Monaco for the launch content, and the campaign closed with a one-night only piano bar in Melbourne, Chivas Regal presents Leclerc's, attended by influencers and global media.

The Romans reports 1k+ pieces of global coverage, 15m+ views of the content across social media, 20m+ reach through social media and 5B+ global reach through coverage, in titles including Vogue and Dazed.

Strategy Breakdown

The primary strategy-learning section — interpretation, not a press-release summary.

The page frames the target as the hype and cultural titles Chivas Regal wanted to be featured in, together with the music and fashion readerships those titles carry, rather than a stated demographic.
Formula One is covered as sport rather than as culture, so presenting Charles Leclerc at a piano in Monaco appears to give fashion and music editors a reason to write about a Scotch whisky brand.
Scotch whisky has little natural claim on hype titles, and the page does not state what coverage the brand held before, so the move into Vogue, Rolling Stone, Complex, Dazed, Wonderland and Tatler reads as the point of the exercise.
Chivas Regal took the role of host rather than sponsor, with the Melbourne bar billed as Chivas Regal presents Leclerc's, which places the brand's name around the driver's creative work instead of on it.
Whisky is described to drinkers in notes and so is music, so the campaign borrows a word the audience already uses for taste and lets it carry the product without a product claim.

Creative & Execution System

Partners

  • The Romans (lead_agency)

Creator role

  • Charles Leclerc — creator

Results & Evidence

MetricValueResult type
pieces of global coverage1k+ pieces of global coverageperformance
views of content across social media15m+ views of the content across social mediavideo_views
reach through social media20m+ reach through social mediareach
global reach through coverage5B+ global reach through coveragereach

Why The Romans's strategy worked

  1. 1

    A brand partner known for one arena reads as fresh material when the work is built on a second interest he holds, because culture titles cover the person rather than the sponsorship.

  2. 2

    Product attributes travel into culture when they share a vocabulary with another craft, which is how tasting notes and piano notes carried a single creative idea here.

  3. 3

    A one-night physical venue gives a content campaign a second news moment, because media and influencers attending in person generate coverage the content alone does not earn.

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