Sometimes it’s good to be square
The Jack Daniel’s bottle and its contents are authentic modern icons
Jack Daniel’s whiskey isn’t advertised in the usual way. Instead, stories are told in the style of postcards from Lynchburg, Tennessee, based on an advertising charter that dates back to the Fifties. They are stories of the people who make it, the ingredients and skills they use, and the place where the whiskey comes from.
It’s a winning strategy of telling, not selling, that resonates deeply within the brand. Jack Daniel’s is able to boast a commitment to integrity and authenticity few others can emulate — every word of every story in every ad is true, featuring real people from the distillery.
There have been celebrity endorsements, but only of the unpaid, heartfelt thumbs-up kind, from passionate fans. In 1955, Frank Sinatra took a bottle on stage with him and told his audience, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Jack Daniel’s and it’s the nectar of the gods.” By the end of the next year, sales had doubled.
Very little beyond the typeface has changed in the adverts over the past 100-plus years. Like the label, they’re all black and white. But, as the 1991 ad above shows, Jack himself always said that what went into the bottle was more important than what went on it. Today, as the year-long celebrations of the whiskey’s 150th anniversary draw to a close, Jack Daniel’s is still made the way Mr Jack made it: charcoal mellowed drop by drop for exceptional smoothness. Cheers to that.