Pernod Ricard and Emotive’s concept for its real-life Alexandria store activation was the result of a slight miscommunication between Daniel Ricciardo and Dan Murphy's.
“The outcome? The greatest takeover in wine history,” Pernod Ricard global marketing director/CMO Eric Thomson told AdNews.
To celebrate DR3 x St Hugo being launched nationally in Dan Murphy’s, the team wanted fans to be able to engage and interact in a fun and creative way with the brand.
“We knew we had to go big. We saw an opportunity to utilise the launch in Dan Murphy’s as a way to drive excitement and recruitment into fine wine,” Thomson says.
“We were looking for a big idea to drive talkability and conveniently Dan Ricciardo and Dan Murphy just happen to share a name and a love of wine. The Dan Ricciardo’s pop up in Alexandria over the weekend was a fantastic way to complement the campaign with a real-life experience for consumers."
The biggest consideration on the minds of the Emotive team for Pernod Ricard’s latest campaign was ensuring it stood out in an already cluttered wine category, Emotive CEO Simon Joyce says.
“To properly engage with this audience you must create more than an ad..." he says.
“Rather, build a narrative that feels authentic to the talent, the brand and most importantly, the audience. The goal was to ensure this campaign was going to excite consumers and get them engaged.”
Formula 1 star Ricciardo and St Hugo winery debuted the takeover in celebration of DR3 x St Hugo wines into Dan Murphy’s nationwide, with content created by Emotive of the F1 driver taking over the store and renaming it Dan Ricciardo’s.
The collaboration between St Hugo and Daniel Ricciardo was first established in 2020, and came about through Ricciardo’s passion for wine and his desire to learn more, Thomson says.
“Launched in 2021, the DR3 x St Hugo collection is a partnership between Daniel Ricciardo and St Hugo. It all began with Daniel’s passion to understand more about the craft, history, winemaking techniques, and to ultimately create some really interesting wines together with our chief winemaker, Peter Munro,” he says.
Pernod Ricard have continued to expand the range over the past few years to recruit new drinkers into the fine wine segment and make it more approachable to a younger audience in particular.
“The initial release consisted of two wines, DR3 x St Hugo Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2015 and DR3 x St Hugo Barossa Valley Shiraz 2014 and has recently expanded to a full collection of DR3 x St Hugo,” Thomson says.
To ensure the entire campaign was kept under wraps, filming took place in Ricciardo’s state of Western Australia, at Hyde Park.
For Joyce and Emotive, the beauty with Ricciardo is he’s not only a high performing athlete, but also has terrific comedic range in front of the camera.
“Due to Daniel’s schedule, we had six hours to film the content, so the cast and crew needed to work quickly - it was a very collaborative effort with Pernod Ricard Winemakers and Dan Murphy’s to keep it under wraps for maximum impact on launch” he says.
As the company moves into the next phase of its DR3 x St Hugo collaboration, Thomson and the team saw an opportunity to utilise the launch into Dan Murphy’s as a way to drive recruitment into fine wine.
“Our campaign objectives were to drive excitement in fine wine, engaging with our current DR3 x St Hugo fans and a new-age wine consumer. We’ve launched a fully integrated marketing campaign, which has proven incredibly successful across every channel since the content launch in early July,” he says.
Pernod Ricard will be measuring the campaign’s success across sales, digital and social channels including social engagement, SEO, impressions and traffic, as well as earned media and influencer engagement as well.
The wine business wanted to create content which had universal appeal regardless of what stage consumers were at in their wine discovery journey, Thomson says.
“We have built a campaign that reinforces St Hugo’s credentials but also finds a new and engaging way to drive talkability and earned media. The development of DR3 x St Hugo exemplifies how we have blended tradition with a contemporary lifestyle, making St Hugo relatable to a wider audience."
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