If there’s one thing we know about Sailor Jerry, it’s that they like to do things a little differently. So when we heard that William Grant & Sons – the owners of the Navy rum manufacturer – were going to bet on organic content to push the brand, we got a little bit excited.

You see, Sailor Jerry has a very cool story behind it. A story that has seen the infamous hula girl be printed on bottles, t-shirts, and indeed bodies. And deciding to promote their brand essentially through word of mouth could work phenomenally well.

Released only a decade ago, teaming up with family company William Grant & Sons, the spiced rum is just a small part of Sailor Jerry’s story which begins in the late ‘20s when Norman ‘Sailor Jerry’ Collins began tattooing.

And that’s certainly something the owners, who also own Glenfiddich and Hendrick’s gin, are playing on to get people sharing the brand.

The identity of the 92 proof blend has never fit into the world more– the world where $1.65billion is spent on tattoos in the United States alone – so it seems logical that there’s enough interest out there to part ditch paid media for word of mouth, a much more powerful tool.

Gary Keogh, marketing director for William Grant & Sons believes that the recommendations of bloggers, bartenders, and experts have much more of an impact when trying to reach an audience.

He said:

“While our smaller brands have focused more on the earned media side in recent years, we’re looking at applying some of those learnings to our bigger brands.”

At Blueclaw we’ve long been advocates of creating exciting, engaging and original content in order to earn priceless, high-authority backlinks and social shares. After all, people like good content. People share good content. It’s all pretty simple.

The idea is that the brand will be the content. Not just something sandwiched between two adverts in a magazine or during the Corrie commercial break.

The company join a long list of big companies already using content marketing to promote their business. In fact, according to the Content Marketing Association, 60 percent of marketers use branded content, making up 20% of their budget – six percent more than that of TV adverts.

Not that the guys at Sailor Jerry are totally avoiding paid media. They’re currently rolling out their $5million “Life Outside the Lines” campaign, with a one minute teaser video being put out across the USA as well as digital, print, and outdoor advertising to follow.

Although that’s even had over 721 shares, and 2,000 Likes on Facebook.

With the internet and social media, word-of-mouth is more powerful than ever before. The company already has almost 23,000 Twitter Followers and 300,000 Facebook fans to appeal to.

With plenty more tattoo enthusiasts, and more importantly rum drinkers in the Twittersphere, it could be a real breakthrough content marketing campaign for them.

And we know for a fact they’ll drink to that.