Jim Beam ready for prime time

LOUISVILLE - The world's top-selling bourbon unveiled its first-ever national television campaign this month. Jim Beam's 30-second spot, running on select cable networks, displays a barrel of the Kentucky-made whiskey being rolled through a rack house after aging.

"Whoever said change is good, knows squat about making bourbon," the ad's narrator says. "For 210 years and seven generations, we've stayed true to the original Beam family recipe."

The multimillion-dollar campaign reflects Beam's new direction in reaching consumers.

"TV will be the lead medium for us from an advertising point of view going forward," said Keith Neumann, Jim Beam bourbon's marketing director.

The commercials appear on such networks as Comedy Central and Spike TV. The ads build on Beam's print campaign -- "The Stuff Inside Matters Most" -- that the bourbon maker says helped boost strong sales growth last year. That same catch phrase appears on the TV ad.

Beam's new campaign reflects a growing role for hard liquor in television advertising, as more cable networks and local stations accept such spots.

Beer and wine are widely advertised on television. But for decades, the distilled spirits industry adhered to a self-imposed ban on such advertising, said Frank Coleman, senior vice president of the Distilled Spirits Council, an industry trade group.

That silence ended in 1996, he said, and since then the industry has poured increasing amounts of money into pitching its products on television.

Industry members spend about $100 million each year on television commercials, about one-fourth of the overall advertising budget, Coleman said. Hundreds of local stations accept spirits ads, as do most cable networks, he said.

Meanwhile, bourbon makers have been much less visible on television.

"We really feel like TV is the next natural extension, which allows us to reach a broader audience," Neumann said from Deerfield, Ill., where Jim Beam Brands Co. is based.

A critic of such ads said Beam's TV debut continues a disturbing trend.

"I believe that is incredibly irresponsible when it comes to the public health," said Susan Foster of Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.

Beam says its ad runs on programs that exceed the distilled spirits industry's own standard to advertise only on programs in which at least 70 percent of the viewers are adults.

Meanwhile, others in the bourbon industry have noticed Beam's television debut, but aren't ready to follow the move.

Heaven Hill Distilleries, whose bourbon brands include Evan Williams and Elijah Craig, has no current plans to do television advertising, said spokesman Larry Kass.

Marketers of Woodford Reserve, a product of Brown-Forman Corp., have no immediate plans to promote the bourbon on television, said Wayne Rose, the brand's global