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Press Office - Press Releases
MONKEY SHOULDER CELEBRATES NME YEARBOOK IN SIMIAN STYLE!
November 1, 2006
IPC ignite! Sponsorship & Brand Solutions – the team responsible for generating truly innovative and creative solutions across the award-winning ignite! portfolio – has secured a significant solus partnership with new William Grant & Sons whisky brand Monkey Shoulder.
The partnership sees Monkey Shoulder, a triple malt Scotch whisky aimed at a new generation of whisky drinkers, pouring significant marketing budget into an unique association to celebrate the launch of The NME Rock 'N' Roll Yearbook 2006.
Not only is Monkey Shoulder sponsoring the Yearbook, taking solus ownership of all the ad sites across the annual. It's also hosting an exclusive VIP launch party for the Yearbook at Café de Paris this evening, allowing specially invited guests to sample Monkey Shoulder cocktails while new rave practitioners Simian Mobile Disco provide an apt soundtrack to the evening. An NME photographer will be on hand and the pictures will be used as a key element in a major promotion in January.
Monkey Shoulder banner advertising will also feature across the award-winning NME.COM website and the association will carry through to sampling at the NME Awards next year.
The partnership was developed by media agency the7stars and ignite! Sponsorship & Brand Solutions senior manager Ruth Chapman.
Monkey Shoulder brand manager Rob Curteis says: “We're a new kind of whisky, drawing new drinkers to the category. To succeed though, we first need to change people's perception of Scotch whisky. NME provides us with the perfect platform to achieve this, plus the opportunity to have a raucous Rock 'n' Roll party in true Monkey Shoulder style.”
Conor McNicholas, NME editor, adds: “I'm delighted to have Monkey Shoulder on board as partners for the NME Yearbook and Yearbook party. They're a really cool brand with an instant heritage and it's been wonderfully crafted. It's also bloody good whisky!”
Ruth adds: “Monkey Shoulder is not the original whisky, it's more original than that. And that makes it the perfect partner for the NME Rock 'N' Roll Yearbook, which proves this year more than ever that originality never goes out of fashion!”
The NME Rock 'N' Roll Yearbook 2006 is the perfect round up of rock year, including a once-in-a-lifetime meeting of musical minds as NME pairs up 20 icons – Noel Gallagher and Serge Pizzorno to Mike Skinner and Pete Doherty - for 10 pairs of must-read, soul-bearing interviews. The Yearbook also features The Playlist, with this year's heroes choosing their own favourites, as well as a run-down of all the highs and lows from the rock 'n' roll year.
The NME Rock 'N' Roll Yearbook 2006 page special is on sale November 07, priced £4.99.
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About NME
NME is the biggest-selling and most respected music weekly in the world. Every week it gives its readers the most exciting, wittiest, most authoritative coverage of the very best in music.
About ignite! Sponsorship & Brand Solutions
The team is responsible for generating truly innovative and creative solutions across the portfolio of brands including NME, Loaded, Uncut and Nuts. They develop the ground-breaking work ignite! has achieved in music sponsorship, brand solutions, promotions and cross media.
For further information, please contact Chris Taylor, head of media relations, on 020 7261 5276 or email chris_taylor@ipcmedia.com. For high-resolution cover images go to www.ipcmedia.com/press/imagebank.php.
About Monkey Shoulder
- Monkey Shoulder was awarded an incredible 93/100 by whisky aficionado Jim Murray in his book Jim Murray's Whisky Bible 2006
- Dominic Roskrow, Editor of Whisky Magazine has described Monkey as 'an outstanding whisky'
- Drinks International proclaimed Monkey Shoulder one of the D.I. Dozen of 2006
- The iconic Monkey Shoulder bottle design was awarded the coveted 'Award of Excellence' at the 46th Annual Communication Arts Design Exhibition while CREATIVITY 35 presented Monkey with an 'Award of Distinction'
- Monkey Shoulder also recently scooped the New Brand Innovation Trophy at the 2006 International Spirits Challenge
- Monkey Shoulder was the winner of CLASS Magazine's 'Whisky Packaging of the Year Award' 2006
- Also this year, www.monkeyshoulder.com won a 'Webby' - the Oscars' of the internet
- William Grant & Sons Ltd is an award-winning independent family-owned distiller founded by William Grant in 1887 and today run by the fifth generation of his family. The Company distils some of the world's leading brands of Scotch whisky, including the world's favourite single malt Glenfiddich,® the handcrafted range of The Balvenie® single malts and the world's fourth largest blended Scotch Grant's®, as well as selected other spirits, including Hendrick's® Gin, recently voted the 'World's Best Gin' by the Wall Street Journal. See www.williamgrant.com
