While many businesses postponed or shelved brand-related activities during 2021, Moet Hennessy was one of those making the strategic decision to continue building brand desirability.

For marketing and consumer engagement director for A/NZ, Scott Bowie, capitalising on the market opportunity to increase presence and investment was one of his bold bets of the last 12 months. And it was a winning one.

“This resulted in the opening of world’s first Hotel Clicquot by Veuve Clicquot in Byron Bay, NSW. In addition, we hosted over 300 VIPS, celebrities and trade on Sydney Harbour for Moët & Chandon’s inaugural Effervescence Celebration Party on 1 December 2021, only days after the lockdown restrictions were eased,” he says.

“Moet & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot have respectively achieved number one and two champagne brands in Australia in terms of value share, while Moët was recognised as the Champagne Brand of the Year, at this year’s Drink Association Industry awards.”

Innovative marketing

Capitalising on and creating new celebratory moments through unparalleled experiences is a highly important component in the FMCG’s marketing strategy. Blending personalisation into the approach is another.

An example of this can be seen in August 2022, when Moët & Chandon Australia launched ‘Moët Birthdays’ featuring cutting-edge personalisation technology and supported by an innovative campaign including several firsts.

Hosted on an experiential website designed with consumer-first user experience in mind, the platform allowed consumers to personalise a bottle of Moët & Chandon using an animated personalisation product page as the ultimate birthday gift. Designed like a choose-your-own-adventure, consumers could progress through different products and shop exclusive celebration offers, all curated by the signature Moët & Chandon concierge from the ‘Maison Specially Yours’ program. 

The launch of the platform was supported by an innovative digital media plan featuring a first-to-market shoppable video format by Vudoo. This enables consumers to swipe, click and transact within a premium video ad experience. Offerings feature personalisation across Brut Imperial and Rosé Imperial bottles, Imperial Magnum, the exclusive Gold Imperial Magnum and on gift box for Grand Vintage 2013.  

“Not only can consumers consume content and shop within the brand environment but transact at the point of inspiration in the premium News Prestige network,” Bowie explains. The work, appearing on Vogue, was also the first time Moet & Hennessy had integrated its Shopify checkout within a third-party platform.

Moet & Hennessy’s amplification plan featured another co-funded, A/B full-funnel test with Meta to further understand the role content creators play in addition to brand content, “a crucial component of the Moët PR-Tizing model”, he says.

“The shoppable video with News Prestige and tests with Meta combined will provide an unprecedented level of consumer data, to continually optimise the campaign and program,” Bowie says.

Within a week of campaign launch, Bowie was energised by the depth of insight received on the consumer journey through the shoppable video dashboard, alongside Shopify and Meta reporting. The data will be key to strategic plans around segmentation and how that can further build the Moet brand as well as inform growth plans across the portfolio.  

“Engagement from our consumers has been excellent, and we’re seeing purchases across our range nationwide,” Bowie told CMO a week after launch. “Overall engagement within the interactive video is currently sitting at three times the industry benchmark, showing how strong the content that was captured in partnership with Vogue is performing.”   

“The launch of the Moët Birthdays platform deepens Moët & Chandon’s ability to own the birthday occasion as part of its larger occasion-based strategy and supports three key objectives: To drive desire for Moët & Chandon with value added offers; reinforce occasion-based salience beyond end-of-year’ and promote the portfolio beyond Brut, ultimately reinforcing the brand’s position as the global champagne for celebration and gifting.”

This program of work was brought to life by a cross-collaborative internal and agency team working across multiple workstreams running in parallel and in an agile environment.

Data-driven maturity

Moët & Chandon is the number one brand in value and number one choice for celebrations. But with the brand tending to underindex in key liquor trading periods outside December, building salience at other celebratory moments is an important way of finding incremental growth for Bowie and his team.

Over the past year, a significant example of this was an elevated and bespoke Valentine’s Day experience and selection of offerings with Moët & Chandon. A 360-campaign was created locally and executed across out-of-home, social and PR. This anchored on a website developed to host a platform supporting consumer education around product offerings and key consumptions occasions.

Personalised online user experiences for consumers across both Australia and New Zealand were developed digitally, and a selection of exclusive personalised bottle sizes was available, encased in an oversized hand-crafted bespoke gift box containing flowers and a card. These were delivered in a Moët & Chandon bespoke Citroën H Van by a white glove concierge service. It was clearly an unforgettable experience for the recipient.

A 10K ultimate proposal bespoke offer was also available thanks to a high-end jewellery partnership with Tiffany, and fine dining plus a 5-star hotel stay were tailored into packages by demand. Bespoke content for New Zealand audiences also featured New Zealand actress, Grace Palmer.

Bowie says the FMCG sold out of all packages in a matter of days. The campaign achieved 870,000 video views, 2.8 million reach, 15 million impressions and a 12.7 per cent engagement rate. Website visits secured 4000 CRM leads. Ad recall saw an uplift of +11.65 points +5pts compared to the benchmark.

Business smarts

Bowie’s scope goes beyond the marketing function and is propelled by his intention to drive positive change and engagement from across the business locally, regionally and globally.

Bowie points to a number of initiatives he’s supporting and influencing to help evolve the business and its culture. The first is ‘Shaping Change’, a business-wide scheme supporting initiatives and ideas from across all functions and levels to improve ways of working.

“This is about ensuring we are a great place to work,” he says. A output from this program has been the ‘mentor me’ program, a cross-functional mentor program providing individuals the opportunity to build on their development and career aspirations through one-to-one coaching sessions run over a 12-month period. The initiative was a finalist at the Drinks Industry Association Awards last month, the first time Moet Hennessy was recognised at the industry awards.

A second initiative is Incubator Hub, a cross-functional innovation / incubator workstream and function to unlock new ways to connect with new consumer groups.

“The team operates within an entrepreneurial and agile environment to develop new brands, products, concepts or collaborations which allow us to meet the needs of new consumer groups and drive incremental growth for Moet Hennessy,” Bowie says. “Establishing the time for cross-functional collaboration is one of the keys to business success.”  

More broadly, Bowie describes bravery in leadership as being founded in the confidence to challenge with positive intent. “But equally, it’s about providing an environment that encourages and supports your team to also do so,” he says.

Leadership impact

As a result of this commitment to team and culture, the Moet Hennessy Australia and New Zealand marketing team has been recognised as the one of the best marketing teams within the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) group globally for the last three years. The team have been recognised by the group for producing innovative, ground-breaking marketing ideas and concepts, inspiring the industry and colleagues within the other LVMH businesses “to think big and act big”, Bowie says. Other brands in the LVMH portfolio include DIOR, Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Belmond.

For Bowie, success has come from two key practices. “Firstly, the freedom to succeed through creating a culturally safe and non-judgemental environment,” he says.

“Each Wednesday, we collectively come together to discuss, share and brainstorm any and all projects within the marketing team, regardless of where they are at, to further build, refine our ideation and execution thinking. We have created the time and space to focus on ‘being marketers’, removing meetings and Zoom to have face-to-face conversations. The weekly meetings are led by the individuals in the teams, with the sole purpose to listen, support and build on their thinking.”

The second principle is broadening luxury knowledge. “Our business vision is to lead the luxury wine and spirits industry. In order to be a true leader, we must look outside of our comfort area of wine and spirits and learn from the ‘luxury’ industry,” Bowie adds.