Whiskey brand Chivas Brothers Marketing Dir Glen Brasington tied a year of positive sales for the company "to a series of marketing experiments that are beginning to bear fruit," according to John McCarthy of THE DRUM. Much of the growth "has come from Asia." Brasington said that in tandem with the "vital Chinese market returning to growth," its partnership with the NBA in the region, which also brought broadcaster Tencent on board, has "further bolstered sales." The campaign's performance shows how Chivas is running localized marketing efforts "across the globe." In China, as part of the NBA's multi-year partnership, Chivas is "running in-store activations, in addition to online sweepstakes and viewing parties." Furthermore, the sport, which is "beloved in China," features prominently in shops, bars and on TV. Brasington: "What has changed in the last six months is that our sales team, distribution and customers have really got behind some of the big programmers that we have pushed into market, most notably, the NBA partnership." Through the partnership, Chivas has "enjoyed sizeable engagement on broadcast and digital channels." Brasington added, "When you partner with the likes of Tencent, who own a lot of the media rights as we have done with the NBA, you get access to a lot of that data and you use it to further retarget or drive more precision" (THE DRUM, 2/19).
