Copper Dog
Copper Dog is a Speyside blended malt whisky recently launched in the UK by The Craigellachie Hotel and Diageo, working together in partnership.
The name ‘Copper Dog’ comes from an old device made from copper tubing with a penny soldered to one end and cork in the other, which was used by distillery workers to smuggle whisky home. It is also the name of the bar at The Craigellachie Hotel. Heart & Feints, working with illustrator Hugo Guinness, designed the bottle packaging, created the brand story and guidelines, ambassador gift boxes, photography assets and a website - all within six months.
Heart & Feints, working with illustrator Hugo Guinness, designed the bottle packaging, created the brand story and guidelines, ambassador gift boxes, photography assets and a website - all within six months. We created these packs to support sales staff before and after key meetings with retailers, purchasing managers, media writers, whisky influencers and celebrities. The packs contained a personalised bottle and framed Hugo Guinness label, plus a ‘copper dog’, copper shot glasses, postcards of Speyside and keys to The Craigellachie Hotel - all which told a key part of the brand story.
“I saw that people were drinking Jack Daniel’s and bourbons, but no one was really drinking a cool Scotch blend. So I said, “let’s do something that is fun and cool.”
To help support the message that Copper Dog is a very mixable whisky we created a series of images of the key serves that were shot within an old workshop on a farm on the outskirts of Haddington just when the temperatures dropped below zero - great timing! The aim was simplicity and to link back to the workshops where the ‘copper dogs’ would have been made.
The Speyside Coppersmith
A copper dog is a key part of both the identity and the story of this whisky, so we needed to get one made. A copper dog is regularly talked about but rarely seen, so we all felt that seeing one for real would make an ideal talking point when introducing Copper Dog. Working with a coppersmith in Speyside and engravers in Edinburgh we created one that not only matched the qualities of the whisky but also gave extra content to the story, as it was made by a craftsman working in an old potato shed close to the River Spey.
