Polar Ice Vodka

Canada’s largest vodka brand gets a new look

The Challenge:

Polar Ice Vodka had been one of the strongest performers over 5 years in the Canadian Vodka category despite limited brand awareness and marketing support. As such the brand looked to reposition PIV in order to improve on conversion and consideration to trial with bartenders and consumers. In order to appeal to the 19 – 25 yr old “fun seekers” who describe themselves as ‘distinctly unique individuals who seek out new and exciting adventures’, the brand would not only need to be refurbished, the brand would need a SMARTIDEA™.

The SmartIdea™:

To establish PIV as a contemporary Canadian brand, BSTREET developed a visual identity system that better reflected the new brand platform and could be used across all channels. The SMARTIDEA proposed a bold new look and positional statement of a vodka that was “Distinctly Canadian, Clearly Distilled” and reflected the graphic appeal of the bottle design itself, showcasing the sophistication of the original Polar Ice Vodka in sultry black and white.

Several Polar Ice ’socialscapes’ were developed that incorporated the distinct bottle as the hero set against a highly stylized visual contrasting its contemporary attitude against its Canadian Polar Origins. The brand also offered customization in the form of 5 regionally distinct “socialscapes” that reflected the differences that set Canadian cities apart from each other.

With the PIV visual identity established, BSTREET set out to develop the brand’s digital strategy. BSTREET recommended a digital platform and content strategy incorporating social media tools to engage the fun-seeker and aggregate the content on polarice.ca. The website featured key product information and an extensive cocktail directory in a seamless user experience.

BSTREET further developed the brand experience by facilitating the conversation on facebook and Twitter, engaging them through social media with a weekly content schedule featuring news and ideas on vodka, music, movies, cocktail culture, and regional events. This engagement helped to establish a PIV personality that was engaging and informative. Then, we delivered an innovative first, incorporating live streaming ‘tweets’ on the PIV homepage that were targeted towards specific brand attributes from the Twitter universe.

For retail, PIV owned the summer with a combination of promotion and flavour innovation. Consumers could enter for a chance to win a Polar Ice Summer Cottage Meltdown Party instantly online plus receive a free gift with purchase of a ‘frozen shot glass’. The promotion supported the original PIV as well as 2 new flavours of Articberry and Maple.

The Results

Sales exceeded expectations, but the true success came in the form of measurable engagement with our core target. The PIV facebook fan page became the largest vodka group with over 3,700 fans and Mia@polarice had over 2,100 followers on Twitter. A modest social media budget generated over 30 million highly targeted impressions on facebook.