Swiss Miss marshmallow whiskey—inside this winter’s snuggliest collab

Swiss Miss, the Conagra hot cocoa brand, is getting into the spirits business through a collab with distiller Hotel Tango, which today introduces Swiss Miss ’Shmallow, a co-branded toasted marshmallow whiskey with playful, retro-accented packaging. A-List & Creativity Awards Enter for a chance to be recognized as the best in advertising Submit your entry here The idea originated with Young & Laramore, the Indianapolis agency that’s worked with both Conagra and Hotel Tango for years. Hotel Tango was already selling ’Shmallow, a toasted marshmallow bourbon it developed in 2022. Y&L suggested adding notes of cocoa for a Swiss Miss version. “The connection just clicked,” said Bryan Judkins, executive creative director at Y&L. “This is Swiss Miss’ first time in the spirits category, so we thought there would be an interesting level of interest. And there’s a playfulness to both brands that we think is a good fit.” Travis Barnes, founder and CEO of Hotel Tango, was immediately struck by how the collab could raise ’Shmallow’s profile. “There’s been this saying [in the spirits industry] for a couple of years that partnering with nostalgia brands is the new celebrity endorsement,” he said. “Instead of us being able to get a Ryan Reynolds or George Clooney, partnering with a brand that’s known worldwide was immediately attractive to us. Swiss Miss is on the shelf in every supermarket in the U.S.—I mean, it was kind of a no-brainer.” Melding the brands on the packaging Along with the product formulation, which took the better part of two years, the package design was a key part of the creative process. Swiss Miss has a rich visual history dating to 1961. Hotel Tango, founded in 2014, has its own striking bottle designs, created by Y&L, that were inspired by Barnes’ history as a combat veteran—the visual identity echoes military rations in particular. Swiss Miss ’Shmallow combines the two worlds. The packaging includes the Swiss Miss wordmark and mountain-range logo, as well as floral accents that the brand used liberally in its early years. On the distiller side, the visuals continue Hotel Tango’s emphasis on military cues—but in a looser way, mirroring the ’Shmallow sub-brand’s broader embrace of less regimented aspects of military culture, Judkins said. “Think tattoos, bomber jacket patches, the scratching into Zippo lighters—things that are kind of counterculture or more playful, that’s the general energy,” Judkins said. “The packaging has the feel of a well-designed bomber jacket.” The brands unite in the central image, too, which shows the iconic Swiss Miss character taking a sled ride with the unofficial Hotel Tango mascot—a cat that is sometimes referred to internally at the distiller as Fletcher. “We wanted to tell the story of the collaboration at a glance,” said Judkins. “You’ve got to hand it to Conagra on this. They let us put their brand icon on a sled with a sketchy-looking cat. They understood that we needed to push the boundaries on this collaboration a bit for it to work.” (For his part, Barnes said the cat is meant to be an embodiment of him, and as such, is “not that sketchy.”) More beverage news: Inside Pepsi’s comeback plans Attitude in the advertising Y&L has developed ads for Swiss Miss ’Shmallow that prominently show the bottle, extend the floral theme and feature zippy headlines. “We’ll be leaning heavily on Conagra and their PR machine to push it out there initially and build buzz around it. Then it’s up to us, with everything from traditional paid to geofencing,” Barnes said. He added, wryly: “I have a cat suit. My wife looks strikingly like the Swiss Miss woman. There might be some tobogganing that happens. We’ll see.” The rise of crossover alcohol products Crossover alcohol products, where well-known non-alcohol brands get into the liquor business, has been a rising trend lately. And it’s not without controversy, particularly when the brands target children in the core parts of their business. Ad Age Creativity Bookmark our section covering the best in brand creativity every day Read more here Swiss Miss ’Shmallow differs from other entries in the category, Y&L and Hotel Tango said. They characterized hot cocoa as a cold weather beverage for people of all ages, not just kids. Also, unlike a product such as SunnyD Vodka Seltzer, this is a collab where one of the brands is an existing liquor marketer. Swiss Miss ’Shmallow is also packaged in a traditional whiskey bottle, with the alcohol content clearly marked, making any misperception that the product is non-alcoholic less likely. (Having the packaging and branding be “easily distinguishable” from non-alcohol beverages was a key recommendation from three industry associations that combined to offer guidelines this summer for the responsible marketing of crossover alcohol products.) Finally, Barnes said, it’s not intended primarily as a PR stunt. “I’ve seen a lot of them,” he said of crossover alcohol products. “SunnyD is doing an RTD [ready to drink]. Doritos has a vodka. I think some of them are just meant to be attention-getting and [create] an easy market splash. This is a product that I think has legs.” A taste of what’s to come Swiss Miss ’Shmallow launches today (Oct. 1) with a distribution emphasis on the Midwest (Hotel Tango is based in Indianapolis) but with orders already coming in from markets as far afield as Florida and Colorado, Barnes said. He sees year one of the product almost as a teaser. “I would expect it to be the FOMO [fear of missing out] effect, where once people see it out there, they’re not going to want to miss out on it next year,” he said. In terms of lessons learned about collaborations, Judkins and Barnes both said the experience was rewarding in terms of building something neither brand could achieve on its own. “We didn’t see this as a stunt,” said Judkins. “We want attention, and we think it’s unexpected enough to do that. But our sweet spot was to make something that will continue to resonate in the world.” “There was a little bit of apprehension, I think, on my part, dealing with Conagra, this multinational, billion-dollar corporation,” said Barnes. “But they were more than generous about timelines and making sure they were on the same page as us. They care very much about the integrity of their brand, and it felt good, honestly, to work with those kinds of people.”

Swiss Miss marshmallow whiskey—inside this winter’s snuggliest collab

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