In this podcast episode, marketing director Jenny Ashwood discusses how Spirit of Yorkshire, a premium whiskey brand, blends sustainability with luxury. Sustainability is embedded in every aspect of the brand, from its name (Filey Bay, a local beach) to its farming methods (no-till/min-till soil management). The brand's "fields to bottle" approach ensures 100% homegrown barley and water from their farm, reinforcing their commitment to place, people, and product. To maintain authenticity and avoid greenwashing, the brand follows a simple ethos: "don't be a dick." This means marketing claims are only made after long-standing practices are in place. During the three-year maturation period before their whiskey was ready, the brand focused on building a strong brand identity and tone of voice, working with agencies to develop a modern, nuanced Yorkshire image that avoids stereotypes. They also built a loyal customer database solely interested in whiskey, rather than releasing other spirits like gin. Communication strategies prioritize in-person whiskey shows and email marketing to engage existing whiskey fans, using this credibility to eventually reach broader audiences. This thoughtful, values-driven approach ensures that sustainability and luxury messages remain aligned and authentic.
From consumer insights across the world to the latest tactics and trends, you're listening to leap into luxury, the go-to marketing podcast for luxury brands. I'm MJ and today we're talking to Jenny Ashwood, marketing director for Spirit of Yorkshire, the award-winning premium whiskey brand. In this episode we'll explore how the brand seamlessly blends sustainability with luxury, retailers, messages for distinct audiences and adapts its communication for global markets. Jenny, thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you very much for having me. So, Spirit of Yorkshire has established itself as a premium whiskey brand with a strong commitment to sustainability, but I'd love to know how sustainability is woven into your marketing campaigns and how you ensure that those eco-messages remain aligned with the luxurious image your customers expect. So, luxury is a really interesting word to use for us because we're definitely premium and being in the kind of the price point space that we're in. It makes sense that it will make it as tipping into luxury and when we think about codes of luxury I guess when you've got kind of handcrafted rare artisan and a reasonably high price point and often family run as well. We tick all of those boxes, but one of the things that we like about ourselves, which sounds strange to say, is that we're all about being approachable and and a welcoming brand and that spans everything from how our liquid tastes. We aim for a really approachable and welcoming whiskey flavour profiles, so if you're new to whiskey our flyly bay flagship isn't going to knock you socks off, but if you've got an established pallet there's still quite a lot of flavour and nuance and complexity in there as well. And so for us sustainability is inbuilt into all of that because it's in everything that we do and I think that really sums it up, is that it's due first, speak second. And so if you're saying something in your marketing we always want to make sure that we've been doing it for a good amount of time so that if anyone challenges on us then we can ensure that we know that what we're doing is right and we've got that sense of purpose behind us as well. It's interesting you say that because I think you see it and a lot of brands are getting called out for green washing and I think it's often done with a good intention. You know people want to be making moves in the right kind of the right direction but then they also want to talk about it as soon as possible and sometimes maybe a bit too soon. So how do you showcase that real environmental commitment in your comms? We make it about ourselves. As a distillery we've got quite strong visions as to who we are and what our brand identity is and what our tone of voice is and our key messages. And those key messages haven't faltered since we started. It's all about Fields bottle. It's all about a hundred percent homegrown barley and it's all about making a world class whiskey in Yorkshire. And so as long as we adhere to those messages and of course they flex up and down depending on who we're speaking to and what environments we're in and why we need to be talking about it. Those are the things that are at the heart and sustainability is a massive part of that. Our two co-founders are Tom and Dave and they have a quite a wide view about what sustainability means. It's not just about the environment which of course is a massive place thing but it's about people, place and product. There's another one as well and I can never remember what that's at the fourth piece. But I think when you start to think about it like that as a bigger picture. So sustainability to the place is hugely important to that. And for us a lot of that is in everything from our name. So the spirit of your distillery is really important that we're pushing Yorkshire and the ethos of the area that we're from. Our whiskey is called Filey Bay which is the beautiful beach near where we're from. The distillery you can look out the window and see this gorgeous stretch of sand. Oh that sounds like a nice workplace. It is but most of the times the sea fresh. You actually can't see it. Okay. Aside from the coffee. And so making sure that we've got that inbuilt into ourselves. So that's part of the reason why we kept coming back to that name. So when we were looking at what we were going to call our whiskey because having a drama spirit of Yorkshire, 15 year old or whatever would have just been a bit of a mouthful. So we looked at having our own separate name for the single malt. And Filey Bay just says his name that we kept coming back from because it's got a really emotional attachment to lots of people. People know where it is. It's this gorgeous stretch of beach. And but also for us it's about shining a spotlight on a part of Yorkshire that's often not really known by the wider world. People know a lot about York and about the Maus and about howeth and the Yorkshire Maus and Yorkshire tea and cricket and drystone walls. But that's not the part of Yorkshire where we're from which is like where the world's kind of rolled down into the North Sea. And it's very well known from people in Yorkshire, people from West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire often come on holidays. But outside of the county it's not necessarily got such glamour pillars and what like with beer or the North York Maus. So it was kind of shining a spotlight on that. And in turn then creating sustainability in the area. So we're bringing more tourists in. We're bringing tourists in with a bit more disposable income as well, which is really important. We're creating jobs in the in the area. So between the farm, the brewery and the distillery because we have a brewery on our farm as well. We've probably, we're employing around 50 people. So all of that counts as sustainability as well as the environmental impact. And the way we're farming is giving us the environmental impact credentials as well because everything we do is no till or min till. So we're not disturbing the soil at all. And we've been doing that for the last five years. Yeah, it's like the whole the whole brand is kind of it's woven into the fabric of the brand. In that case you're not just doing things to check boxes. It's right from the core base of your business. Everything is kind of operating ethically and giving back. And that's clear as well by the way that you're explaining it all. Like you can obviously see the passion there. But when it comes to a piece of marketing, you're obviously working with different mediums, different kind of word limits and stuff. And that is right that there is a lot of eyes on greenwashing at the moment and being authentic. I mean, do you have any techniques for taking that story or taking these values of the brand and placing them in marketing materials to sound and come across as authentic as you are? Yeah, I suppose so. I think and this is probably not a term usually it's an luxury marketing but in general the ethos that runs through everything that we do farm distillery, amberery is just essentially don't be a dig. And so and it's pretty good. It's a pretty good life lesson to live by. I mean, it really is because if you're thinking about something and you think, right, hang on, let's put this message out there. And then actually you think, is that is that too far? Are we pushing this too far? Are we being a bit egotistical? Are we putting ourselves upon a horse and we're just going to get like knocked off it? And sometimes the answer is, yeah, let's tone it back. And I think that helps as a kind of a reason for doing something like a checkbox. Most Yorkshire answer. It's said with love, I went to university in Yorkshire, it's amazing but it's good. And I think that's part of it as well is that it's a family-run company. So Tom the co-founders my dad, Dave, the other co-founder is his best friend but I've grown up with him being my friend's dad and my parents best friend. And so actually one of the really nice things has been turning my relationship with my working relationship with Dave in from being kind of one of like family, joky, of us Jenny, Tom and Jill's daughter to actually and sorry and Dave, dad's best mate. And actually now we work together as peers and partners and actually that's been brilliant and it's really fun to see someone in a totally different environment and to watch them like be absolutely brilliant because he has a fantastic salesman and he's just so good and how he makes decisions quickly and intuitively and all of those things are really good and I think that comes across in a lot of what we do as well. You still get to tell them not to be a dick sometimes. Oh so satisfying sometimes. Sitting in a meeting, I mean actually, dad, I think you're wrong. He has to listen to me and I think he hates it but it's my sister has it as well. She runs the brewery with her husband and I think there's been a few moments where it is quite like oh yes, I feel like I've put a good level. You have to listen to the kids now. Luxury is often described as quite exclusive I guess with it being a family brand and from Yorkshire you want to maintain that familiarity. What kind of language and imagery and branding choices do you use to keep the messaging aspirational but not dickish. I really like that. You can use that for every minute. So we did a lot of work up front before the whiskey was ready. So the thing with whiskey is that once you make it it has to stay in a cask for at least three years and have at least three years maturation in wood which is brilliant for the favourite profile but quite tricky for a cash flow and kind of creating momentum about something. So you're creating it but you can't sell anything. So we had three years between 2016 and 2019 where we couldn't talk about it. Within that time I was working at an agency in London and we did a lot of work there on tone of voice. We thought a lot about brand personalities, about brand personas. We looked at young archetypes and we kind of put ourselves out for every man slash magicianish kind of archetypes that that Eddon flow depending on who we how we were talking about it and where we were looking at but it meant that we had a really strong tone of voice and a really good idea of who we were, what our messages were going to be, kind of what our brand identity and like instincts were and actually instinct is a good word. That's one of the ones we came out with which is I think instinctive knowledgeable, real and spirited which plays in quite nicely to the distillery name and we had ourselves a set of brand is isn't so we are friendly or we are down to earth but we're not overly friendly and over familiar. Like we are kind of modern Yorkshire in that kind of straight talking but we're not e-bigham, let's tickle those Yorkshire stereotypes because again that's just not us and we don't walk around in flat caps with what well she's to be fair. She's wearing a black cap right now. I'm not sure if everyone has seen those in flat caps like that but we're not walking around with it. It's not talking about dry sims all the time and those sorts of things like we're not putting Yorkshire roses and white roses over everything for us it was important to kind of get across that. That much more modern, much more nuanced identity like Yorkshire you from you and you and Leedsie said Yorkshire is a massive county with this
huge range of diversity from what it looks like in East West Yorkshire to what it looks like over where we are where it's actually it's kind of farming and fishing and seaside towns with where you've only got like half a radius to bring people in from like it's it's a very different landscape and it's enormous but it's also quite small and everybody knows everybody in certain parts especially within farming too so we kind of wanted to bring that to life with the packaging and the design and how we look so we work quite hard on our branding and our identity and making sure that that nuance came to life just as we're working hard on making sure that the whiskey was as good as in that liquid inside the cask was as good as we could possibly be it could possibly be so we worked with a distilling consultant called Dr Jim Swan who's really well known for bringing in some like awesome working with some fantastic distilleries all around the world people like Cavalan in Taiwan kill Homan in in Iowa in Scotland and so we worked with him to kind of help us bring in that knowledge so that we could then take it and kind of flourish on our own and thrive on our own and I think that's what we've done with some of the branding as well and how we've worked with that so using the resource that we had when I worked in London and getting some really great ideas from them we also worked with a fantastic branding agency that had that based down in Southwest and they've come up with some brilliant ideas and we ran a pitch for that project and for the branding and actually despite the fact that they were in the Southwest and everybody else that was doing it was in Yorkshire the guys in the Southwest absolutely not the socks of everybody else and they just really nailed it and then it turned out that they lead designer and the creative director there is from is from Yorkshire it's from East Yorkshire I'm really under sounds of Yorkshire worlds and her members in Scarborough and they're like she really gets the area and that really came through with the with the packaging and I keep I've got a bottle in my bag and I keep wanting to pick it up and like show off because that's what I do and I'm talking about it normally so they just get a lot of hand action instead and yeah so I think that having a really good knowledge of who we are as a company I think has been really important in how we then are able to communicate because we're not thinking all this hand brand is that the right kind of word to use should we be saying this should we be saying that because instinctively we've all kind of we all know it the temptation I think so often now where there's there's a lot of focus on kind of results right from the off is to jump ahead and kind of straight to output but I guess being forced almost by the by the project to spend that time really establishing yourself as a brand understanding has given you such a lego because now what you're making everything really secure position any decision you make any comes you put out any material you put out it all feels authentic to you because you spent so long building that brand but those comes as they're coming out do you have specific platforms that work better communicating the brand values you spoke about and specifically the tone of voice that came out of them do you find that there are platforms where that is more effective yeah email is an absolutely fantastic platform for us and also face to face and and you see that a lot with drinks I can vouch for this space now I'm in let's go see what I've got half a wall in my bag you can have a fantastic afternoon what a way to do a Monday emails really important to us and we've worked a lot those three years we spent a long time building up a loyal really loyal customer base and one of the things that we've done specifically that was a very very specific decision was in those three years where we were waiting and we didn't have whiskey and you literally can't put anything out that says whiskey on it because that's totally against trading standards and that's another thing we've been really hot on is making sure that every label we've ever done has gone through trading standards that we're ticking every checkbox on the European lists on all of those listed that we make sure that no matter what no one can turn around and say well it's actually it's not whiskey because people do that anyway so you're like as long as you can turn around and say actually I think you'll find that it is it makes you feel very smoked as an example hey don't be a dick yes exactly when someone says actually you felt whiskey wrong you can only spell it with why when it's not when it's from Scotland if it's not from Scotland it has to be why that is absolutely categorically not true like you know someone says the obvious answer and it's not the right answer that's one of those like it's a really it's a bit of a myth which but what you can't do is call it scotch if it's not from Scotland because then you've got to adhere to the scotch whiskey rules because there's a geographical indication around it and it's actually the legal framework and and so we would never do that so it's understanding those nuances but one of the things that we did when we were waiting for that three years is instead of doing what lots of distilleries do for a lot of very very good reasons is that they might say put out a gin or a rum or something else that kind of can help create a brand awareness and also bring in some cash which is very much needed in those that three-year period but for us because everything we do is from first principles so it's all fields bottle it's a hundred percent a hundred percent of the barley that goes into that whiskey is grown on our farm and all of the water that goes in comes from a borehole sauce on our farm as well so if we were going to make a gin in order to do that in first principles we would have had to buy in a whole new set of distillation equipment to make a neutral grain spirit that was the right level of alcohol for gin because the majority of gin is made by you buy in a neutral grains for it and then you essentially distill it and rectify it for flavour using botanicals so we didn't want to do that so we very specifically didn't do that and at first it did feel a bit counterintuitive that we were going to kind of not do that and then not have any income for three years but actually I think in the long run it's given us a lot more credibility within the wider whiskey world because people know oh yeah they've just done whiskey and it also means that we've built a database of people who are really just interested in whiskey it's not that they're kind of gin-drink, his or rum-drink, his or anything else that we might have to then try and convert yeah instead they're fans of whiskey first and foremost so prospective clients obviously you've got this excellent kind of database of consumers prospective consumers will will come to know about you through different mediums right so you'd say your EDMs are the kind of the most successful tool that you have or platform that you have I suppose that's because you've got more option for longer copy you certainly got some really excellent things to say when you're speaking to these prospective consumers in a smaller place in Scram or I don't know if you're on Pinterest what kind of platforms are you exploring there and kind of what kind of messaging works for bringing them in I really that's the kind of the Wild West and the new frontier for us and so far we've done a lot of work on focusing on existing whiskey fans so people who really know and love whiskey and we've done that very specifically to gain self credibility with that market because they form the basis for everything and if they believe that it's a great whiskey then that will trickle through to all the other audiences and demographics that we might want to be speaking to as well and in speaking to them what we've done is it's do it in person so we've gone to whiskey shows and we've been out and about those sorts of places like literally pouring whiskey for people at the shows when they're going because that's the best place to catch those fans so the London whiskey show that the whiskey exchange run every September and to all sorts of regional shows we're at the one in York again this weekend and so we've built it up that way so it's it feels like it's not kind of a big out of home campaign or something that you might normally think about at the top of an A-Deff funnel instead you're almost like down at the talking to someone face to face and someone coming up to you and saying oh hang on I've not heard of you or whiskey before and you're saying ah brilliant today's a lucky day let's pull your drama we can chat about it so doing a lot of that alongside that we've done some work with print advertising in magazines and in local papers the Yorkshire Post and Regional Press have been fantastic for us the Scarborough News they pick up loads of stories and that's a brilliant way of creating awareness in the local area and someone coming up to you and saying god I can't open a local paper without reading a story about you and you're like yes then I've done my job and like you know what I wanted to happen and and we've got a footfall coming to the distillery as well where people come because they hear about the coffee shop and they want to come and see the tours and do things like that and so we bring people in that way so it's been a bit more of an unusual way of creating brand awareness other than the usual kind of paid paid channels that we might have gone for and we found that print advertising really tricky to get a handle on Facebook sometimes works really really really well sometimes you don't get any traction whatsoever in this no clicks and you just can't understand the rhyme no reason and then of course things like just making sure that Google's up to date and we've got the right info on there and so that we're coming into the top of those and that does I think help build awareness when people are searching for whiskey that suddenly they're like oh hang on there's a Yorkshire whiskey right let's just click on that and try that so I think that's the next step is actually how do we open out even more and I think those platforms and understanding those better and how we can use paid media cleverly is going to be a really good next step for us and a big learning curve to be honest so you mentioned there that in person events have been kind of key to building that brand loyalty and the community around you what would you what would that look like for you how would you tell the brand story of those events how do you get people to hand over their precious data and kind of stop that relationship with people I think I'll answer those is two two separate points say the in person ones it just seems to work like liquid on lips is just crucial and it and it sounds a bit obvious but actually you can talk to people and tell them lots of things and you can have them on like on screens and things but actually getting them to try it is really fun so we do lots of different shows everything from kind of whiskey shows to like the Yorkshire show and it's really fun when someone comes over and they go oh yeah I don't think I really like whiskey and then they try it and you see that eyes like up and they're like oh oh oh oh and they've got this really oh everyone does the same and it's really cool because you're like marketing campaign and that's really exciting because then that's kind of an amazing way of getting them to actually say actually hang on I thought I didn't like whiskey because maybe I got smashed on some jack Daniels when I was like 18 but the amount of people they can't even say oh now I can't have in touch whiskey for 20 years and then they try it and they're like oh actually especially our filibay flagship we've developed a flavor profile
very specifically for the distillery that's really welcoming and approachable. So I think I said before, like it's it's A to the next, Bourbon caskets, light, fruity and creamy and that that sentiment resonates around the world. So I was in America a few weeks ago doing a tasting at the old places, a highland games in Pennsylvania which is very bizarre. Naturally, absolutely amazing. A really good fun for three days. But the same sentiment arose where people came and they said, "Oh, I don't really like it. I only really like this." And then they tried some and they said, "Actually, yeah, actually I can see myself getting into that." So for res, it's kind of the full funnel in one go where someone sees your name, walks over and says, "Oh, who are you? Tell them a bit more of the story." They say, "Oh, tell me a bit more. You get a drink in their hand, they try it and then they buy it and you've gone all the way through." And you've caught them not necessarily in a place where they're really thinking about it. They might be a bit more open to it. Someone like that because it was a highland games and there was lots of people with Scottish and Irish and Gallic and Gaelic heritage. They were actually quite keen to try that. And it was quite nice because in America they weren't really aware that actually English was really quite different from that. So they were then trying English whiskey and and thinking, "Oh, okay, yeah, okay, I can move myself forwards for that." So kind of getting liquid on lips is number one, the crucial thing. So in any instance, if we can be in person pouring and sharing, then that's absolutely brilliant. And one of the things we often do is if we're doing a talk or someone's doing a taste, it was anything. We put a drum in everyone's hand, so it's quite fun doing like. I can tell you. I can tell you. I read someone from the NFU the other day and he said, "I know you. You did that conference in Leeds and you gave everyone a drum of whiskey 10/10 before you did a talk about export." And I was like, "Yeah, I did, yeah." And it was like, "That's wonderful." Didn't you love the tour? I know, and now you remember me because I'm the girl with the whiskey, so that's fine. And it was a totally out of context situation. So I was like, "You see it worked really well." And so I think, yeah, Liquid on Lips is absolutely crucial and it just can't be overlooked. And it seems so simple that if you want someone to like your product, give them your product to try. It was like, duh, but actually, it's an easy one to forget sometimes, yeah. In a world of clicks and likes and how do we read just like, measure that KPI and that kind of thing. Actually, the biggest thing is getting them to try it and getting them to like it. And we talk a lot about how marketing, you need amazing marketing to get people to buy, to pick the boss off the shelf to start with. But if they're not going to rebuy it after that and they don't like the taste, then you've just essentially just wasted a lot of money on one sale. One, actually, you could have really focused it on future sales too. And then the second question was about the data capture. So that's, I mean, the usual boring things like when you're at a show being getting someone to put their email address into a Google form. You can't just tell you, because someone's in the data, just get everyone to write their email addresses down on a piece of paper. And I was like, no, no, we'll get to so much trouble if you do that. If you're not listening to any of the stuff I've told you about, I know we absolutely haven't listened to you at all, because it's quite boring. Was it your dad? So yeah, see, really simple methods like that. And I think a lot of it is just going really back to the basics of marketing. And nothing upset to me more than when someone says, oh, it's just a bit of marketing nonsense. You're like, well, it's not because if marketing's done well, it's absolutely brilliant. And it is such a useful skill. And like a lot of what we do is go, yeah, probably go back to basics, right? What is marketing? You're either going to be, if you want to grow and create a new product and you're either stealing market share or you're growing the marketplace itself. Like those are the two kind of fundamental parts of it. So a lot of what we've been doing now is has been growing the market's share because World Whiskey in English Whiskey particularly is quite a growing market. But also in doing that, you're still slightly stealing share from Scotland. Although a lot of the time what we find is that people kind of buy whiskey is portfolios. So they don't just buy one bottle of nerf, they're buying yours, they're not buying somebody else's. They're buying yours and it goes into their cabinet and they have one for their days with their friends, one for the days when they're on their own, one for the days when it's sunny, one for the days when it's, you know, it's bad. I do that with candles. I think that's pretty. You do have candles for specific situations. It's a real thing. But you do it with everything, didn't you? It's like you don't just have one pair of shoes because you've got shoes. You don't. Or even foods and things like that. So I think that's been a really useful thought process on that. And then from there it's actually okay, where do we want to target people and how do people want to be spoken to about this? Except that was my next question really. As obviously you've got a broad audience really that you're trying to speak to right now from Whiskey newbies. I'm a self-professed one of those. I'm afraid so we might have to have a session with a draft of what? To those collectors and those connoisseurs and things. And obviously when you are meeting people in real life, you're experiential kind of activations that you're talking about. You can tailor your comms there and then to the type of person that you're speaking to. But when it comes to other platforms, other methods, other ways of talking to them, are there any challenges that you face when you're having to tailor comms to specific audience groups but still maintaining your brand voice? The tricky things though when you're trying to talk to someone on quite a broad platform say something like Facebook where if you put out some paid advertising and even at the best moment in the world when you're using little likes and you're targeting them based on preferences and all of that kind of thing, there will still be some people that don't get confused, that don't understand. If you say it's matured and ex-burbon casks or they say this and they just don't get that. And there's certain levels where if you spoke to a Whiskey connoisseur or someone who had a really expert palette and quite a big collection and you told them one thing they wouldn't think they were being patronising. And if you said the same thing to someone who was new, they were thinking you were being really confusing and it was all to kind of smoke and mirrors. So it's sometimes finding that balance is quite tricky. But I think in general because we target quite specifically based on mindset and we have a quite a strong view on right at the moment we're focusing on talking to these people. So that means we're going to be looking at targeting audiences that like X, Y and Z it means that we're going to be looking at publications that are focused on this. It means that we're going to be going to shows that part of that interest too. Then we can really we know before we go what we want to be saying to them and what messages we want to use because we use the same messages over and over again. It's just that we might the hierarchy changes. So for an audience at a farm shop we'll be talking more about the farm, we'll be talking more about the barley, we'll be talking more about the genitive farming practices and all of those sorts of things. But for an audience and then the back at message there is and the whiskey is delicious as well. Please try it. Whereas if we sort of flip that round when it comes to you say a whiskey loving audience where if we were in a whiskey magazine and we were sort of focusing on key things to say there it would be all about the provenance, the still configuration, the casks that we're using, the flavour profiles that we want that we've got gyms ones kind of mentorship in there as well. Oh and also we're regeneratively farmed and we're doing all of this tick tick tick that that sort of thing. So it's just understanding your audiences and there will be times when we just get that the wrong way around or that or somebody isn't in that they're in the wrong audiences or the different audiences that we might expect but I think you get that with every kind of messaging on any kind of product. 100%. Yeah. Expanding on that point you mentioned earlier that you're recently in America so I'm assuming you're expanding into international markets which is very exciting. Are you adapting the brand messaging to resonate with international audiences specifically and their kind of diverse cultural values or do you have regional strategies how are you approaching that expansion? They're in my head. I think you're thinking there and I think it's it's funny going from working on agencies on major global brands where you've got regional teams and different strategies depending on which audiences you're talking to or whether it's for the sector I was in before whether you were kind of retailers or you were talking directly to customers that kind of thing. We're not that big and we've kept it a lot more simple. There's any mean another guy that work on marketing so really for us it's about making sure we're not going to make a massive faux pas I think is the crucial thing first and say the wrong thing that would be actually quite offensive and so having that cultural understanding for that is really important and then otherwise actually a lot of the values that we espouse are pretty worldwide these days and so maybe for when we're in China and Japan we're still focusing more on the liquid and the quality of the liquid and the quality of the flavour and the backup of that because that's what people used to from understanding Scottish whiskey and that those we use the language that they're expecting to hear about whiskey which is casks and maturation times and flavour profiles and things like that and I think that will that really helps kind of give us some gravitas in that market and once we've established that then we can build on that with more of the environmental messaging and more of the kind of the identity messaging about the farm and the provenant story too in places like Europe it is a lot more like the UK and the US too we're actually depending on who you're speaking to if it's kind of a wine retailer in Orange County then it's much more about the provenance and that story with the liquid as a backup flip it on its head for different places where it's more of a whiskey focus so I think we can it's kind of same but a little bit different that's the general approach okay so looking forward you don't see any particular changes or evolutions to your marketing strategy outside of what you're currently doing when you're kind of encapsulating that international audience you're sticking with you know the messaging and those core values you're not having to adapt those for the different markets. No I think we'll always be evolving because I think the crucial thing and one of the things I've got written down is the key phrases to talk about today and if I was losing myself to focus back on was there's always more to do like no matter what you're doing with sustainability like by no means are either like benchmark brand or whiskey for sustainability at the moment so there's always aspirations to get to you but it's about doing it properly not cutting corners just so you can tick that box but making sure that actually we're going to focus in on this we're going to make sure we're doing it really really
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адGotرضyn ni'n wedi dyfrady rosterhoch. Mae'r licid Shredddi yn angen ddys catchnwp yn Ŝ destinations are deep and beneficial for those di may give a little bit of view on not Mars. It's hard to take humans away from that social but craving for social interaction. What are you most excited about for the brand? We've got a couple of interesting things in the pipeline for the next year. We've got a lot of balls juggling in the last year and some of them are starting to come down and be caught and actually go into something else. We've got a couple of other big markets that we're hoping that we'll open again. We sold out 6000 bottles quite quickly and we were thinking what comes next and then everything went mad in 2020. We've got a couple of ideas and we've got a couple of ideas that we'll open again. We've got a couple of ideas that we'll open again and be caught and then everything went mad in 2020. do it slow. Like brewing whiskey. Brewing? No. Just stealing. Like just stealing whiskey. There we go. You can tell I'm not whiskey. I'm not saying you would have known that. Jenny, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm going to go away and now tell everybody that I work with not to be a dick. I'm going to do that. My Q take away. My Q take away. I mean, Q take away. I'm not saying it to their face when you're in the middle of an argument. Doesn't matter where I am. That's someone who works with their arm now. And it's good. Yeah, thank you so much, Jenny. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. If you enjoyed this episode, follow us at Leap Interluxury podcast on Instagram to find out who we'll be speaking to next.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Spirit of Yorkshire integrates sustainability as a core brand value, focusing on "people, place, and product," and employs eco-friendly farming practices like no-till agriculture.
The brand maintains an approachable, authentic image (guided by the ethos "don't be a dick") to avoid greenwashing, ensuring marketing claims are backed by long-standing actions.
During a three-year maturation period without product sales, the brand invested in developing a strong tone of voice, brand identity, and a loyal whiskey-focused customer base, avoiding diversions into other spirits.
Communication strategies prioritize in-person events and email marketing to engage existing whiskey enthusiasts, building credibility that then extends to broader audiences.
Summary:
In this podcast episode, marketing director Jenny Ashwood discusses how Spirit of Yorkshire, a premium whiskey brand, blends sustainability with luxury. Sustainability is embedded in every aspect of the brand, from its name (Filey Bay, a local beach) to its farming methods (no-till/min-till soil management). The brand's "fields to bottle" approach ensures 100% homegrown barley and water from their farm, reinforcing their commitment to place, people, and product.
" This means marketing claims are only made after long-standing practices are in place. During the three-year maturation period before their whiskey was ready, the brand focused on building a strong brand identity and tone of voice, working with agencies to develop a modern, nuanced Yorkshire image that avoids stereotypes. They also built a loyal customer database solely interested in whiskey, rather than releasing other spirits like gin.
Communication strategies prioritize in-person whiskey shows and email marketing to engage existing whiskey fans, using this credibility to eventually reach broader audiences. This thoughtful, values-driven approach ensures that sustainability and luxury messages remain aligned and authentic.
FAQs
Spirit of Yorkshire integrates sustainability into its core operations, focusing on people, place, and product, rather than treating it as an afterthought. They ensure eco-messages are authentic by practicing sustainability first and communicating it second, avoiding greenwashing.
The key messages are 'Fields to Bottle,' 100% homegrown barley, and making world-class whiskey in Yorkshire. These messages remain consistent across all communications.
They prioritize 'do first, speak second,' ensuring sustainability practices are established before promoting them. This authenticity prevents accusations of greenwashing.
The tone is instinctive, knowledgeable, real, and spirited, with a modern Yorkshire identity that is friendly but not overfamiliar, avoiding stereotypes.
Email marketing and face-to-face events, like whiskey shows, are most effective. These allow for longer copy and direct engagement with whiskey enthusiasts.
They wanted to maintain their 'Fields to Bottle' ethos and credibility, focusing solely on whiskey to build a loyal audience genuinely interested in their core product.
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