By Bob Green, President and CEO, The Verdi Group
Unfair competition? Perhaps, but we’ll take a bow anyway!
It’s a wine and cheese party—of course the communications are fun and engaging! Every year The Verdi Group invites all of its clients, friends, and family for an evening of celebration—all over the world and here in the U.S., there are festivities to mark the arrival of the new Beaujolais—Beaujolais Nouveau—the first time we can (according to French law) actually taste the wine from Gamay grapes made in the Beaujolais part of Burgundy. The wine is released annually on the third Thursday of November.
In 2012, with our 16th annual Beaujolais Nouveau Partee right around the corner, we developed a creative and response-worthy invitation to ensure that the 16th celebration would be the finest and most-attended one yet.
Strategies & Target Audiences
The target audience for this invitation included current, past, and potential future clients of the agency as well as business partners, friends, and family. The strategy included reaching potential guests through both postal and email, and exciting them with a high-impact, interactive invitation.
Implementation/Tactics
The direct mail invitation was an 8”x 5 ½”x 1” box featuring the wine label artwork.
Inside of the box was a lift note with all of the information about the event, including a link to theverdigroupweb.com, a blog created just for this event. The blog contained a post seeking submissions to the Wine/Cheese-Spoofed Movie Title Contest, and asked for wine/cheese-spoofed movie titles to be submitted as comments. There were an overwhelming number of submissions. The best ones were actually turned into movie posters (altered from the originals), and were on display at the party. The submissions were then placed on the blog and put to a vote to determine the winner!
In each mail piece, beneath the note, was a wine bag branded with the Verdi logo and a wine bottle graphic with event information.
Objectives/Results
Our objectives were to gain a 20% response rate (RSVPs) and generate 20 entries to the Verdi Wine/Cheese Movie Title Contest. We ended up with a 27% response rate and generated 60+ entries to the Verdi Wine/Cheese Movie Title Contest.
Guests enjoyed a lively atmosphere, wonderful live music, and great food and drink which not only included the Beaujolais Nouveau, but also a cheese assortment with 70+ varieties from all over the world!
Watch our video showcasing this piece.
Editor’s note: The Verdi Group was a 2013 Pinnacle Award Winner in the Element Category #18: Print Piece (Invitation, Poster, Sales sheet). For a full list of the 2013 winners, read the News Release. Rochester Business Journal’s article following the event is available here. A full photo album from the event is posted here.