No grouse about this use of print

Jo Francis is stirred from her sofa-based stupor during an ad break in I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.

Slumped on the settee last weekend, vegging out in front of “I’m a Celebrity” my attention was caught by one of the many Christmas adverts currently vying for our attention on the gogglebox.

As it turns out this was the first airing for The Famous Grouse’s Christmas 2013 TV campaign. And guess what, dear reader, it involves another example of brands turning to personalised print promos to drive sales. Let seasonal joy be unconfined indeed!

It’s cleverly done. Via www.makesomeonefamous.com, consumers enter the details for personalised front and back labels. Thus, rather than ‘The Famous Grouse’ the label might say ‘The Famous Dennis’ (per the one I’m going to be ordering for my dad).

Instead of The Famous Grouse having to get involved with shipping heavy, breakable, expensive-to-post individual bottles of booze, the person ordering will receive a set of labels that they can apply over the existing ones on their bottle.

And they will have a bottle of Famous Grouse to hand, because the promotion, while free, requires you to enter the details of the barcode on your bottle of said Scotch.

Clever eh?

Famous Grouse labels with suitable blank areas have been ordered from Gilmour & Dean, on a blue back labelstock to avoid show through.

The personalised overprinting, carefully specified to match the existing design and drop shadows on the label, is carried out by Mailing & Data Solutions, with the project managed by Gary Burnett at DCI for marketing promotions agency Multiply.

I’m told thousands of requests were registered after just the first showing of the advert.

Hat-tip to all. Another great example of a print-related promo that simply wouldn’t have been feasible not that long ago.

The power of TV advertising meets the power of the interweb meets the power of print.

Worth raising a wee dram to.