Can ‘joy’ sell Gen Z on wine? This award-winning campaign suggests so
Taking Food and Beverage Gold at The Drum Awards for Marketing EMEA 2024 is Launching the most joyous new wine brand to a Gen Z audience from Paradise Agency and Concha Y Toro. Here is the award-winning case study.
Background
From identifying a market gap where no wine brands were within the top 10 alcohol brands purchased by 18-25-year-olds, to a full circle ‘major wine glow up’ brand vision, the sassy and relatable world of JOY wine was created to directly attract the Gen Z and young Millennial category.
The aim was to engage this previously untapped ‘non-wine-drinking’ audience. Arriving with vibrant branding aesthetics and a joyously authentic tone of voice, JOY has redefined the previously stuffy and often inaccessible offerings on retailer shelves by introducing four variations: Fruity Rosé, Bright White, Juicy Red, and Orange Spritz. The products launched exclusively at ASDA on 4th August 2023, revealing a whole new wine-drinking experience for young shoppers.
Objectives
So, how did we begin to shape the ideas needed to market a modern wine brand offering to an audience that doesn’t currently drink wine? This was the challenge appointed to Paradise Agency by the team at Concha y Toro. We set about with four simple objectives:
Create, build, brand, and launch JOY wine to an 18-30-year-old audience.
Increase and attract interest in the category by bringing non-wine drinkers into the fold.
Drive 60,000-unit sales over the next three years through awareness and retailer support.
Insight
Our audience isn’t physically scouring the shelves at Majestic or popping to Waitrose on a Sunday morning to throw a bottle of red into the shopping basket with the roast dinner essentials. Instead, they are a young, social-driven, and content-hungry audience, which is why we headed digital and decided on a social-first strategy.
To gain further perspective, we hosted an internal focus group and digested data from multiple sources on media consumption and wine opinions from our key market. This directed us to the following approach and strategic outline for the brand.
Strategy
We implemented a three-part marketing strategy, segmented into Drop, Sip, and Pour. Here’s how each element unfolded:
The Drop: Making a Market Splash
We hosted an invite-only ‘Joy Drop’ Party in Manchester, embodying the brand narrative.
We invited 100 influencers to create content, sample the products, and post about the event, generating over 300 slices of UGC.
Through micro-influencers on Instagram, we utilized a giveaway based on a ‘follow/like/share’ mechanic to build engagement and grow our audience further.
We created varying brand content (stills, videos, reviews, and audio bytes) from the event to kick off our channel content, providing a wider ‘bank’ for organic and paid usage.
The Sip: Always-On Social Activity
We established social brand pillars around our audience’s key interests of music, travel, entertainment, and dating to build content and relevant narratives, always keeping our product at the heart.
We implemented a strategic and tested paid plan, driving our audience to one of the key purchase spots (ASDA) and helping to drive retail sales.
We created the #WorldOfJoy, a responsive digital experience detailing product information, store finders, and brand FAQs to build loyalty within our community.
We created a joyous and on-brand Community Management strategy to start and maintain online conversations through comments and engagement.
The Pours: Campaigns
Our first campaign was a travel-focused competition offering our audience the chance to visit Ibiza for three legendary nights with JOY, generating over 4k new followers.
Our second seasonal campaign was Christmas-focused, with the hook surrounding JOY’s Juicy Red wine and the 12 Days of Christmas, reaching over 2m people.
Results
Since launching last year, it’s been an award-winning time for JOY with impactful results and reach throughout the period covering April 2023/24. Here are the highlights:
Product of the Year in a survey of 8,000 consumers conducted by Kantar.
Best wine launch in The Grocer Top Product Awards.
£350k in sales since the August 2023 launch (as of December 2023).
53% of sales were from new customers previously not buying wine.
19% switching from lifestyle wine brands.
A community of 4,800 followers.
3.2m people reached in 2023.
7.6m content views.
800k social engagements.
45k potential customers generated.
Secured listing in ASDA with accompanying quote ‘Best Marketing Pitch we’ve ever seen.’
Today, Paradise Agency has implemented a forward-thinking three-year plan with the continued goal to make a relevant and joyous impact, celebrating and inspiring individuality and inclusivity across all JOY platforms.
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