A good marketing campaign can put a brand in the minds of many for decades. Consider the Budweiser Frogs or “The Most Interesting Man in the World” ads from Dos Equis. Then, there’s the Canadian Club whisky “Hide a Case” campaign, which is still getting press nearly 60 years after its initial launch.
Not only is that the case because it was a stroke of marketing genius, but it also presented a mystery that remains unsolved. And if there’s one thing we can take away from the ongoing popularity of true crime documentaries, it’s that people love an unsolved mystery.
Hiding the Loot
The year was 1967. Whisky brand Canadian Club was under the ownership of liquor company Hiram Walker & Sons, which decided to promote the brand with a whisky treasure hunt dubbed the “Hide a Case” campaign.
Canadian Club reps traveled to far-flung corners of the world and began hiding 12-bottle cases of whisky in secret locations. The spots included, but were not limited to, the Great Barrier Reef, the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, a waterfall in Venezuela, the North Pole, and the roof of a skyscraper in Manhattan. Between 1967 and 1991 — when the campaign ended — a total of 25 cases had been stashed.
Over those 24 years, the brand periodically published print ads that offered hints to individual cases’ whereabouts. One read “Devil’s Backbone Reef hides the world’s strangest shipwreck… and a case of Canadian Club.” “We left a great gift idea up near
