Tommyrotter Distillery Celebrates Craft and Mischief for Latest Campaign

Tommyrotter Distillery is launching a humorous, integrated ad campaign to support its range of award-winning premium spirits. The campaign centres on Willy, a spokesperson who hails from the 19th century Arts & Craft movement. As an artisan himself, Willy appreciates the crafted quality of Tommyrotter spirits. He also has a mischievous side to his personality that aligns with the brand’s innovative distilling history. 

Tommyrotter has been a distiller of innovative and premium craft spirits since 2015. The distillery is located in downtown Buffalo, New York’s historic hydraulic district. The Distillery’s name comes from a secret society of 19th century misfit artisans that broke away from the Roycroft Arts & Craft movement (near Buffalo, New York). The original Tommyrotters worshiped craft and held artistic freedom to be paramount. They loved mischief, and were known to enjoy a stiff drink now and then. 

Good&Ready is a branding and advertising agency located in Toronto, Canada. The agency team has created  national, international and global campaigns for brands in every imaginable category including: financial, automotive, telecommunications, food, cosmetics, retail, sports apparel, and fund-raising/appeals. The agency offers clients, a seamless one stop solution for brand design and advertising across multiple platforms. 

Craft & Mischief 

“The campaign positions Tommyrotter in a truly white space in the premium craft spirit category,” says Sean Insalaco, partner at Tommyrotter Distillery. “It shows that Tommyrotter stands for more than craft, it stands for artistic freedom too,” adds Sean.  

“We tapped Good&Ready for this assignment,” says Sean, “because they have a proven track record of taking brands to the next level. We knew coming out of Covid that we wanted to lean into marketing, but we didn’t have our brand story perfected. Good&Ready worked with us to focus on the important parts of our brand’s narrative.” “Further,” says Sean, “the campaign that resulted is really different for the craft spirits category. It’s incredibly engaging and unlike a lot of the advertising for craft spirits, it is not passive - it has energy and it is fun to watch.” 

Handmade Advertising 

“The Arts & Craft movement was a reaction to the industrial revolution,” explains Alan Madill, partner, creative at Toronto agency Good&Ready. “This group advocated for a handmade aesthetic, where the touch of the craftsman was present in each object,” continues Alan. “This was the inspiration for the lo-fi feeling of our campaign. The animation is intentionally simple and feels handmade. The static assets use a collage approach that also feels crafted.” 

The Good&Ready team created seven videos, in-store and around store materials, sales distributor materials as well as a social campaign. The campaign supports the vodka, whiskey, gin and bourbon-barrel gin products. As well, there is a full mini campaign supporting a ‘gin season’ promotion. The campaign launches in June and will run throughout the summer.