CONVENTION
Californian wine is just not on UK wine drinker’s radars. And no wonder, we have France, Spain, Italy on our doorstep, not to mention all the New World options; we’re spoiled for choice when it comes to great wine.
So, we had to move away from tradition, away from traditional media buy, well-worn recipe-and-wine advertorials and “old wine voices” to omnichannel partnerships, natural interactions and open-minded conversations.
BLINDSPOT
There's a moment where, in the last five years, there's been precisely zero pounds spent in media by wine brands. It's also the time the country could do with some Californian vibes.
'Dry January'.
The truth is only 20% of wine drinkers actually stop drinking for the month, and a third of them don't even complete the month. Our bet was that the remaining 80% were more committed wine drinkers; a more valuable audience for us.
So we turned Blue Monday, supposedly the darkest, dreariest, most miserable day of the year, into a Californian moment.
RELATIVE ADVANTAGE
Together, Bountiful Cow, Wine Institute, The Guardian and Majestic Wine built a multi-channel partnership designed to make Californian living feel achievable in the UK in the darkest winter, and to make Californian Wine the symbol of that shift.
Guardian Labs created an ecosystem across immersive features, online articles, a wine quiz, Feast magazine placements, high-impact Food, Lifestyle and Recipe takeovers, social amplification and display.
We took it into podcasts too: straight from his triumphant appearance on Traitors, Alan Carr was raising a glass of California wine on his huge new podcast 'Bottoms Up'.
Going live in January also unlocked Relative Advantage in distribution – there were fewer wine brands competing for retail space. Majestic supported in bringing the campaign to life in-store, with promotions and POS that brought the sunshine to store.
THE IMPACT
The Guardian partnership cut through: campaign recall reached 75% versus a 41% benchmark, and 94% of those recalling the work found it appealing versus a 78% benchmark.
Our top performing article “I was hiding behind small talk; what could I learn from my friend in California about how to connect?” hit 3 minutes 15 seconds average dwell time.
That's more than double the benchmark and the highest The Guardian have seen for branded articles and higher than most non-branded pages.
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