Helping wine lose its bottle

Summary

To show that wine in a can tastes great, and to demonstrate the key environmental benefits of the beverage can, we brought together five of the UK’s leading wine critics for a Virtual Wine Taste Test.

Tell me more

Canned wine is rising in popularity, with the UK market now worth a whopping £3.6m – a 125% increase in the year to August 2019. 

However, the perception still exists that canned wine is in some way inferior to bottled wine, an opinion that the Can Makers, the trade body representing drinks can manufacturers in the UK, wanted to change.

The Challenge

The Can Makers approached us to help position the aluminium beverage can as a genuine alternative to more traditional packaging formats, and dispel the myths surrounding the quality of wine in cans. 

While the ultimate goal was to demonstrate to wine critics and influencers that wine in cans taste just as good, if not better, than that in a bottle, we proposed a campaign that would not only challenge expert opinion, but lean on their reach and influence to relay key messages to a new and wider audience.

The Pelican approach

To challenge the perception of wine in cans, we decided to put them to the ultimate test; inviting five of the UK’s leading wine experts to participate in a virtual taste test.

Having identified a selection of the best canned wines available in the UK, we designed and produced a Can Makers branded presentation box, press pack and placemat, providing our expert panellists with instantly sharable social media collateral prior to the event.

Enlisting BBC Saturday Kitchen’s Olly Smith as event host, we structured and facilitated a highly engaging virtual taste test, that successfully flipped our experts’ preconceptions of canned wine on their head.

What’s more, we captured the entire event on camera, producing a series of highlight videos that showcased the quality and benefits of wine in a can; not only providing content for the Can Makers website and social media channels, but an opportunity to reach new audiences through our panellists’ own channels.

The results

We delivered a consumer facing media relations and social media campaign that successfully challenged the perception of wine in cans, helping dispel the myths around the quality of wine in a can and placing canned wines front and centre stage across both targeted social media audiences and key consumer press.

Together with Can Makers, Pelican agreed a series of SMART KPIs to capture and evaluate the success of the campaign over a 3-month period.

Utilising the influence of our panellists’ social profiles to amplify the reach of the campaign, we exceeded social media KPIs across the board within two weeks of launch, resulting in more than 50k impressions and 2,060 engagements.

In addition, the Virtual Wine Taste Test videos have clocked up more 3,000 views to date, exceeding KPIs by more than 200% in the first month, with coverage of canned wines secured in national titles including the Mail Online, The Sunday Telegraph, delicious Magazine and the Daily Star, as a direct result of the campaign.

Pelican Communications is a specialist in the environment & CSR, food, packaging & logistics and trade association sectors and offers a range of services such as strategy, design, content creation, public relations and people development.

Don’t just take our word for it…

“I was trying not to arrive with preconceptions, but I suspect I did. This has completely opened up my eyes to the possibilities of decent red [wines] in cans” Susy Atkins, drinks editor, Delicious Magazine

Pelican Communications is a specialist in the environment & CSR, food, packaging & logistics and trade association sectors and offers a range of services such as strategy, design,  content creation,  public relations and people development.

Contact us for marketing and communications expertise.