With signal loss on the rise, many advertisers are giving first-party data more of a shot.

Not scotch whisky brand Dewar’s, though. (In this case, “whisky” is the correct spelling – “whiskey” with an “e” is used for Irish and American varieties.)

While Dewar’s has access to its own internal sales data, for the purposes of ad targeting it mainly relies on social media to find its audience.

The scale of a walled garden like Meta allows Dewar’s to reach audiences based on affinity while obeying age-related alcohol advertising restrictions.

“We’re really careful as an organization to be super compliant when it comes to first-party data,” said Laila Mignoni, global VP of marketing and creative excellence at Bacardi, which owns Dewar’s.

Changing course

Targeting self-identified whisky drinkers has proven effective, of course. But so has targeting fans of golf, given how much the two audiences overlap.

“The link between pure Scotch whisky and golf really goes back to its origins, to Scotland,” said Brian Cox, VP of Dewar’s for North America.

What’s more surprising is that golf, one of the only viable options for pandemic socializing in 2020, continued to grow long after the end of social distancing.

According to the National Golf Foundation, 35.5 million Americans played golf either on or off the course in 2019. By last year, that number had jumped to 45 million. Of those, 18- to 34-year-olds represent the largest segment, at just over 12 million.

To reach their ideal persona within that group – namely, millennial drinkers over the age of 30 with disposable income – Dewar’s has begun to incorporate more digital, social and experiential options into its media mix, including placements on Golf.com and the United States Golf Association (USGA) website.

Dewar’s also works with Instagram influencers, such as #MakeGolfCool’s co-founder Roger Steele, as well as with educational or review-based YouTube channels, like the Whisk(e)y Vault.

“In a category like whisky, you have multiple communities, be it from a lifestyle perspective [or] from an expertise perspective,” Mignoni said. “Looking at how you build communities and how we can segment those communities through social media is key to us.”

Drivers of success

 Although digital represents a larger portion of its advertising budget, linear TV still has an important place within the Dewar’s media mix.

Dewar’s is a major partner of the US Open broadcast, which, in 2024, saw record-breaking numbers on NBC and Peacock, including a 17% viewership increase on streaming.

Cox shared that around 10 million of the people who tuned in during the tournament likely engaged with the brand’s online presence in some way, whether via its social media presence or on USGA.com.

Audiences exposed to a Dewar’s ad during the US Open were also more engaged with the brand than those that weren’t, according to live brand-tracking studies conducted by Dewar’s.

More importantly, though, sales are up. Since becoming the official scotch whisky of the US Open in 2021, Dewar’s has seen growth in its overall market share, particularly among 30- to 40-year-olds.

But for Cox, the best form of promotion is “liquid to lips” – in other words, letting the product speak for itself, particularly at the brand’s in-person activations at golfing events across the country.

“We have quite a sophisticated marketing and sales machine,” he said, “but it always comes back to what’s in the bottle.”