Increasing in-store brand awareness
CLIENT: Avaline Wines
As the wine started to flow one sunny afternoon between co-founders Cameron Diaz and Katherine Power, so did the conversation about what was actually in the wine they were drinking. Realizing that winemakers are legally required to disclose very little about the ingredients, Diaz and Power created Avaline Wines, clean delicious wines full of natural goodness and free from unwanted and undisclosed extras.
Avaline Wines was founded on the idea of bringing transparency to your ingredients list and is quickly setting an example for other wine companies to do the same.
Their transparency promise:
Ingredient Transparency
On each bottle of Avaline you’ll find their ingredient list, which is also fully detailed and explained on drinkavaline.com
Nutritional Transparency
They believe it’s important for you to know exactly what you’re drinking, which is why they have their wines lab tested so that they can include calorie, carbohydrate, sodium, and protein facts on the back of every bottle of Avaline
Product Transparency
They’re proud of their producer partners and highlight their stories prominently on all digital channels.
Every bottle is vegan, made with organic grapes, and free of unwanted additives so that you can pour your glass with confidence.
PROBLEM: Gaining in-store brand visibility
Avaline Wines launched in July 2020 with their White and Rosé, which immediately gained a dedicated following. Having only launched two years ago, Avaline’s digital marketing strategy has amassed 163k+ active Instagram followers, 15k+ one-to-one conversations with its community, and over 28 million video views through earned media coverage and engaging social content.
“We saw such an opportunity, not only in offering a wine made from organic grapes with very low intervention and additives but also to create a brand that this modern consumer connects with emotionally through digital channels,” shares Katherine. They saw an opportunity to connect with the modern consumer in a way that the wine industry hadn’t done before. Specifically, with vegan and organic wines, which are typically only found in specialty shops, Avaline was built to be accessible and identifiable.
Two years after Avaline launched and the beginning of the pandemic, grocery stores opened their floors for sampling and shoppers are once again browsing aisles for new products that catch their attention. And this was the next realm of marketing Avaline was looking to conquer.
On-premise demos are a whole new level of marketing and coordination and Avaline Wines was looking to outsource their needs of event/demo scheduling, product inventory checks, staffing events with knowledgeable Brand Ambassadors, and event feedback reporting.
PLAN OF ACTION: A curated experiential marketing plan tailored to the needs of Avaline Wines
With the mission of disrupting the wine ingredient list and nutrition label status quo, it was important to make Avaline available where their consumers are already shopping. Since the beginning of April 2022, Phun for All has scheduled and held 145 in-store demos between Ralph’s Grocery and Total Wine & More throughout Southern California.
Along with scheduling and coordinating in-store demos, a big ask from Avaline was not just where their demos would be scheduled, but how their brand’s story was going to be told to their consumers. Being a leader in paving the way for more transparency from wine labels, it is important to Avaline that the Brand Ambassadors are educated in what sets Avaline apart from others:
No Unwanted Additives
Unlike many winemakers, they tell you what ingredients are used during the winemaking process. Every bottle of Avaline is made with minimal intervention, free from added colors, concentrates, and unnecessary sugars.
Vegan
Each Brand Ambassador scheduled is trained on all aspects of Avaline to be ready to represent it as if it were their own.
Each Brand Ambassador scheduled is trained on all aspects of Avaline to be ready to represent it as if it were their own.
Not only is Avaline confident in who is representing their brand, but they can also be confident in seeing the actual numbers through Phun for All’s reporting system that Avaline has access to, staying up to date with ROI in real-time. Each Brand Ambassador submits a full detailed report about each activation including; how many units were sampled and sold, how many consumers they were able to interact with, comments from the consumers and the managers of the store, and so much more.
RESULTS: Brand visibility and traction gained
Over the course of the 145 activations, around 460 units were sold. During the in-store demonstrations, many Brand Ambassadors reported that the consumers’ favorite aspect of the Avaline brand was the taste of the wine and knowing exactly what was in the wine they were tasting.
Being able to simply try the product before purchasing had a huge impact on the buying decision. Although they have digital marketing success through social media channels, they never had the ability to “try before buying”. This proved to build more brand awareness for the new wine label and, paired with the findings that the median age of the consumers interested in the product were ages 31-40 at 52.3% throughout all demos, positively reinforced that experiential marketing can increase brand awareness exponentially in the demographics you are trying to hit.
CONCLUSION: Phun for All plan provided concrete results with their experiential marketing plan
A key takeaway for Avaline Wines was the importance of partnering with an experiential marketing company that believes in the product as much as they do so that every event interaction for their consumers was as if they were speaking directly with the founders themselves.
Phun for All understands the challenges of building brand awareness and works on taking each unique challenge presented and creating a managed solution through coordinating, reporting, impressions, and brand activations.
Looking for experiential marketing help? Connect with us here at Phun for All!
