This unique partnership between our client, Corby Spirit and Wine and the Toronto Blue Jays was a great creative brief for our baseball-loving team. Competition is fierce among Canadian-made vodka brands with consumers often making game-time purchase decisions based on price and promotions. In order to create a deeper emotional connection with core vodka consumers and improve loyalty Corby secured an exclusive partnership in becoming the official vodka of the Toronto Blue Jays. As part of this partnership, we were briefed to craft limited-edition branding for Polar Ice Vodka that would manifest itself on a series of collectable bottles and in-store promotions. Pigeon was challenged to create a impactful, limited-edition bottle designs to creatively celebrate the nation’s favourite baseball team partnering with Canada’s beloved vodka brand and create a sense of uniqueness to drive sales.

Working within partnership guidelines, the Pigeon team were mindful that the creative solution needed to cleverly combine the two brands and avoid the generic commemorative sport memorabilia concepts of the past that are easily overlooked by consumers in store.

Instead, we had the Polar Ice bears step up to the plate and created a design that stayed true to the brand persona while letting Jays fans around the country know that Polar Ice Vodka has cracked the starting lineup.

With both organizations instantly falling in love with the concept, we were able to execute this iconic Canadian partnership in record time, coinciding with the Jays returning home after nearly two seasons away. The playfulness of the Polar Ice Vodka bears as baseball players is engaging and helps the brand stand apart from competitors.

Once the concept was presented to the Corby and Blue Jays teams we knew it was an instant winner. Both parties stated it was one of the quickest approval processes they had experienced as all internal stakeholders immediately gave the thumbs up to produce this product in record time.

We are so excited to hear from Polar Ice and Jays fans around the country as they continue to revel in the team’s homecoming and mix up a new signature cocktail: The Polar Leadoff with this limited-edition offering this summer.