How Malibu rum is turning summer from a season to a mindset

August is National Rum Month, and so it’s high season for the flavored rum brand Malibu. But when the beach days come to an end and autumn sets in, how will the brand hold up?

That’s the challenge before Matt Foley, VP of marketing for Malibu, a Pernod Ricard-owned brand. In this week’s episode of the Marketer’s Brief podcast, Foley discusses how a campaign known as “Do Whatever Tastes Good” is shifting summer from a season to a mindset, giving Malibu more relevance year-round.

“For us, ‘Do Whatever Tastes Good’ was really about going a step further and trying to understand and define what it meant to be a brand associated with summer. For Malibu, we came up with the idea of shifting away from just being associated with summer to being a brand that stood for the summer mindset, otherwise known as that vacation mindset—that point when where you get to kind of put all your worries aside, close the laptop, and really allow yourself to have fun, and be playful,” Foley said. “And that’s where Malibu comes in.”

“Do Whatever Tastes Good” came as part of a 2022 global brand reset with Wieden+Kennedy London. The strategy is to use Malibu’s equity in sunshine and beaches to remind consumers they can have those carefree moments at any time.

Malibu's rums saw a 7.8% decline in cases in the U.S. in 2022, according to Impact Databank figures reported by Shanken News Daily. Malibu's ready-to-drink cocktails increased by 260% a year after being introduced in 2021.

“We realized that summer associations are fantastic and are going to continue to be important for us. But they can limit us to being a brand that might only get selected if someone’s in that moment,” Foley said. “So for us, it was this realization of let’s play to our strengths as a brand. Let’s not move away from being associated with summer. But let’s further define it and open it up as a brand that could transport people into that moment at any time.”

Foley also discusses the importance of music to the Malibu brand, which this year enlisted singer Jax to record a new version of  Rupert Holmes' 1979 hit “Escape (the Pina Colada Song),” a natural fit for a star of pina colada drinks. The song and accompanying video are meant to keep Malibu in the cultural conversation, an ongoing challenge for an established brand, Foley said. Malibu was also involved in a video for another “Escape” remix this summer, by DJ Cassidy and Shaggy featuring Rayvon.

“We have a great product. We’re highly relevant throughout the year. But it’s always going to be important to come up with those activations like we did this summer to just keep the brand fresh and something that is buzzworthy and people are talking about,” Foley said.