Scottish cider maker Thistly Cross has launched its first ever consumer advertising campaign as it looks to embrace its position as the ‘Scottish challenger’ to the cider market.
The campaign, launched last month, includes out-of-home posters, social media ads and on-trade point of sale materials.
Featuring a distinctly Scottish sense of humour, the ads include taglines such as ‘Welcome to cider country. Yes, really’ and ‘For summer days. Both of them’.
Point of sale material including bar mats feature messages such as ‘Juicier. Tastier. Scottisher’.
On social media, activity will include a short film featuring brand founder Peter Stuart as he travels around Scotland meeting Thistly Cross fans.
The film has been designed to subvert the ‘sun-dappled-orchard and tanned-young-people-in-beer-gardens norms of the category’.
“This is a really big deal for us as a business – we’ve never done anything on this scale before,” said head of marketing Emily Clarke.
“But after gaining such strong distribution across the country, it’s time to make the most of that and make Thistly famous.
“Thistly Cross is so much about place and people, and we’re really excited about this new campaign which really captures that in a way that’s distinctive, and flexible enough to run with well into the future.”
Thistly Cross worked with Scottish creative agency Fantasticate on the campaign, with the team working on everything from initial research and strategy through to development, media planning and execution.
Fantasticate co-founder, Andy Tucker, said: “Scotland isn’t known for its cider. People tend to be genuinely gobsmacked to discover it’s something we actually make here. But those who do know Thistly, seriously love it.
“So we wanted to tap into that passion and pride – this is our cider, made right here, and also do something different to all the clichéd cider ads out there. Something very Scottish and irreverent.
“It’s a fantastic range of products and we can’t wait to help more people discover Thistly.”
