Owning a market - NED Whisky x Supercars

A whisky aged with the sounds of a V8 engine racing around Mount Panorama? Some would say that’s a Supercars fan’s dream - NED Whisky certainly believes it is. 

NED Whisky is a locally-distilled Australian whisky created from the belief that ‘Australia deserves a whisky that reflects its people’. To break into the Australian market, Top Shelf International had to look no further than cementing NED as the official whisky of Supercars.  

“Supercars is an ambitious and genuinely national sporting competition and a perfect fit for our brands” said Drew Fairchild, CEO of Top Shelf International. “Now more than ever consumers are looking to support Australian and the Supercars supporter base, with its regional and metropolitan footprint and passionate fans, will enable us to continue to grow both NED and Grainshaker via the delivery of memorable experiences at venues around the country.”

With the release of their second special edition Sounds of Bathurst range, ‘a whisky for Australian motor racing fans’, NED are continuing to build the awareness of their ‘premium, distinctively Australian’ whisky. Using a recording of David Reynolds and Lee Holdsworth’s race laps from the 2021 Bathurst 1000, NED sound aged reserve grade NED Australian Whisky, bottled it up and labelled it with race numbers and a map of the famous Mount Panorama track - a collectors item if we ever saw one. 

NED describes the ageing process on their website - “the ageing process of whisky can be sped up using ultrasonic waves – in this case the sound of engines vibrating through barrels of whisky. Our reserve grade NED Whisky barrels were matured at our barrel house in Melbourne inside our sensory container. We blasted our barrels for over 1,000 hours with this recording, resulting in one of the most unique whiskies ever made.”

For the next three years, Top Shelf International will remain the official Whisky partner of Supercars, exposing the trackside whisky drinkers to a unique Australian product. By identifying a target market and gaining a deep understanding of the audience, NED has owned the trackside whisky drinking market.

So what does all this mean for you and your business? If you want to increase your chances of engaging with a potential customer, you need to know who they are. And luckily, there’s help. A good marketing strategy will take care of market segmentation for you, by dividing up the general population into specific groups that share similar interests and behaviours. Once you know which group or groups your product is meant for, it becomes much easier to craft messaging that resonates and drives action. 

If you’re looking for assistance with understanding your customer, our team at KEO can help. When creating effective marketing strategies, we deep dive on your customers to ensure the strategy is tailored specifically to your target audience – so whether you’re just starting out or have been in business for years, we can help to get you where you want to be.