By Bruce Schreiner The Associated Press
Associated Press/Jim Beam
The new TV ads for Jim Beam Brands stress the brand's long history. Images portray the liquor being racked since it was first made in 1795.
LOUISVILLE - In Jim Beam's national television advertising debut, the star is the bourbon whiskey itself, and its history.
The world's top-selling bourbon unveiled its first-ever national television campaign this month. The 30-second spot, running on select cable networks, displays a barrel of the Kentucky-made whiskey being rolled through a "rack house" after aging.
The ad depicts workers from different eras to stress the brand's heritage - which began when family patriarch Jacob Beam first sold a barrel of whiskey in 1795.
"Whoever said change is good, knows squat about making bourbon," the ad's narrator says. "For 210 years and seven generations, we've stayed true to the original Beam family recipe."
It concludes with the statement, "Here's to stubbornness."
The multimillion-dollar campaign reflects Beam's new direction in reaching consumers.
"TV will be the lead medium for us from an advertising point of view going forward," Keith Neumann, Jim Beam bourbon's marketing director, said Monday.
The commercials appear on such networks as Comedy Central and Spike TV. The ads build on Beam's print campaign - "The Stuff Inside Matters Most" - that the bourbon maker says helped boost strong sales growth last year.
That same catch-phrase appears on the TV ad.
Beam's new campaign reflects a growing role for hard liquor in television advertising, as more cable networks and local stations accept such spots.
Beer and wine are widely advertised on television. But for decades, the distilled spirits industry adhered to a self-imposed ban on such advertising, said Frank Coleman, senior vice president of the Distilled Spirits Council, an industry trade group.
That silence ended in 1996, he said.
Members of distilled spirit industry spend about $100 million each year on television commercials, about one-fourth of its advertising budget. Coleman said. Hundreds of local stations accept spirits ads, as do most cable networks, he said.