Chivas Brothers: Refreshing flavour – how cultural insight created category redefining flavour wheels for Chivas Brothers’ brands globally

Chivas Brothers, a Scotch whisky brand, created dramatic category differentiation by expanding whisky's flavour vocabulary in the USA, Chile and Spain.

Summary

Chivas Brothers, Pernod Ricard, recognised that the language of whisky flavours was repetitive, intimidating to novices, and in need of modernisation – with both the category and consumers defaulting to traditional descriptors, e.g. "rich", "creamy". Chivas brands had the opportunity to create dramatic category differentiation by building an expanded flavour vocabulary. This collaboration between Sign Salad and Chivas Brothers leveraged semiotic analysis, cultural research and expert interviews to open up the whisky category to consumers globally, creating a future-facing 'library' of ways to communicate flavour – visually and verbally.

To make luxury whisky more engaging for new and millennial...

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