AMELIA ISLAND, FL: Brown-Forman, the spirits group, has made effective use of mobile to extend its physical events into the digital space – and thus reach new audiences in engaging ways.

Jason Loehr, Vice President/Director of Global Media & Insights at Brown-Forman, discussed this topic at the 2015 Association of National Advertisers' (ANA) Digital & Social Media East Conference on Amelia Island, Florida.

And he pointed to the case of Jack Daniels Motel No. 7 – a live event featuring everything from a barbershop, concerts and swimming pools to a chapel where an ordained minister could legally marry customers.

"It was this crazy, visceral experience of all these different things that were going on," said Loehr. (For more, including other examples, read Warc's exclusive report: Brown-Forman mixes experiences and stories.)

"But it was just showcasing and celebrating Jack and all the different areas, and all the ways that people consume it and people appreciate it."

While Motel No. 7 only involved a few hundred people on location, a mobile campaign "extended it out to millions who also participated in their own ways."

Continued Loehr, "We talk a lot about content. But what's awesome about mobile is that it brings the word 'context' into the conversation in such a dramatic way.

"It's the idea that where that information is being consumed is so important. Trying to build from that, we look at [it] for new audiences."

"Context comes into play in multiple ways and mobile's been a big driver of that. We did some great work with Foursquare in terms of the location and being able to put messages in the right place and the right time."

Making use of mobile, then, allowed Jack Daniels to connect with consumers that it may not have successfully reached in the past – a quest helped by effectively tapping into big data to enable precise targeting.

"The stories that we're telling to someone who has known the brand for 30 years are different than the stories [we might tell to] someone who's just being introduced to it."

On mobile, Loehr offered, "The cinematography is different than ads on TV or other types of [viewer] consumption."

Data sourced from Warc