You don’t name your company Skinnygirl if you’re not willing to push a few buttons and the cocktail manufacturer looks ready to do just that with its new “Drink Like a Lady” advertising campaign, which debuted this week.

The brand's first national commercial, now running on cable channels as Bravo, HGTV, Food Network and E!, notes a few new offerings under the Skinnygirl banner such as Skinnygirl Vodka with Natural Flavors, Skinnygirl The Wine Collection and new ready-to-serve cocktails, according to a press release from Beam, which acquired reality TV star Bethenny Frankel's cocktail brand last year.

“The Skinnygirl Cocktails' new ‘Drink Like A Lady’ campaign is about understanding women. They know what they want, how they like it, and the art of socializing should be on their own terms. They've earned it!" says Frankel. The campaign is all about women creating their own social rules and setting their own agendas, which is something Frankel, one of Bravo's five original Real Housewives of New York City, is very familiar with.

Americans haven’t been able to enjoy over-the-counter Cuban products for decades now and it doesn’t appear that will change anytime soon. That’s bad news for the folks at Pernod, who have been battling to get its Havana Club rum trademark renewed. Unfortunately for them, the U.S. legal system at pretty much every level has said, “No dice.” The most recent blow came from the Supreme Court.

The rum is being made in Cuba by Cubaexport and distributed by France-based Pernod, a loophole the U.S. government doesn’t approve of and so when the Havana Club trademark came due in 2006, the government opted not to renew it, according to Bloomberg. The Cuban Foreign Ministry is not happy. After all, America accounts for 40 percent of the world’s rum intake so it would be nice to be mixed into that financial cocktail.Continue reading...

Chillin’ Like a Villain with Johnnie Walker Blue Label

Johnnie Walker Blue Label and Porsche Design Studio have teamed up to create the Johnnie Walker Blue Label Collection of mini-bars designed to keep your bottles of Johnnie Walker ready to sip in style.

The made-to-order Johnnie Walker Blue Label Private Bar, available from Harrods, features state-of-the-art motion sensors to activate opening, revealing three bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue Label and four crystal glasses, “presented on a precisely angled surface – 24 degrees, like the bottle’s label” and “subtly illuminated to showcase the perfect serve of JWBL.”Continue reading...

California's Barefoot Wine & Bubbly has long supported efforts to keep beaches clean and “barefoot friendly.” Now the wine brand taken some of that beach trash and put it to use – in a billboard touting its new film, One Beach.

As you can watch above, the billboard — located in Venice, Calif. — used 18,000 pieces of beach detritus, and turned out to be a visually stunning reminder — in keeping with the brand's name — to keep beaches clean, beautiful and safe.

The campaign — which echoes Corona's "Save Our Beaches" effort in Europe — used the reclaimed trash motif in its poster announcing the film launch on Facebook.Continue reading...

SoCo with a Kick

Brown-Forman’s Southern Comfort is joining the flavoured spirits trend, but instead of going for sweet, like Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey or Jim Beam’s cherry-flavored Red Stag, SoCo is bringing out the spice with its new Southern Comfort Fiery Pepper.

The liqueur is splashed with Tabasco and aimed at the shot-drinking young male market as well as being promoted as a key ingredient for spicy cocktails. The brand surely hopes the new product will be a shot in the arm, as the overall Southern Comfort brand had an 11 percent drop in revenue during the quarter that ended July 31.Continue reading...

ABSOLUT Mode: Reflections of Fashion

The ever-chic ABSOLUT brand continues its long association with the world of high fashion with the ABSOLUT Mode Edition, a 12-faceted bottle wrapped in a silk cloth design and a sleek ad campaign starring model Shannan Click, shot by Sharif Hamza. The bottle is now available exclusively at Selfridges and Harvey Nichols in the UK, and after Sept. 5, the special edition will be sold at other major UK retailers.

British designer Gareth Pugh has designed an even more exclusive edition of the bottle featuring a “batwing” design inspired by the iconic “Stealth” jacket from his Autumn 2007 collection. This limited edition bottle will only be available after Sept. 7 by going to the W London Insider at the W London in Leicester Square and saying the password “Reflections of Fashion.” No word on the price for this bottle or how many will be available, so latecomers may find themselves speaking nonsense for nothing.Continue reading...

Carnival Cruisers Thirsty for Thirstyfrog

Carnival Cruises is bringing its private-label draught beer ThirstyFrog Red, which was introduced on the Carnival Magic in May, to the rest of its fleet. Fifteen Carnival ships have already received kegs of the brew, with three more set to get them soon. The beer sells for $5.50 a glass and debuted in the Caribbean-themed RedFrog pub, the cruise line’s first. USA Today notes that Carnival may introduce the pub concept to other ships along with the beer.Continue reading...

Molson Coors’ announcement that it will launch Animée, a new “bloat-resistant” beer aimed at women, in the UK this fall has not exactly been welcomed with squeals of joy and air kisses by female commentators.

Many seem to view the new campaign as a cosmetic condescension that will likely do little to make up for decades of sexist marketing that have driven women away from beer in the first place.

As Melissa Cole puts on the sarcasm: “It's called Animee, because girls are drawn to anime and the name Aimee. It's pretty! It tastes like 'light, sparkling, finely filtered beer' (also known as Zima).”

Ouch. Kim Conte at The Stir is even more blunt: “Just because I'm female doesn't mean I like to drink crappy beer.”

The message? Try a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T ... it might be more effective than frou-frou marketing in enticing women to embrace beer.Continue reading...