Since 2021, Candlewick has been involved with the PR for Nicolas Feuillatte, one of the youngest Maison in the Champagne region.
Since the establishment of Nicolas Feuillatte 30 years ago, it has reached the number one selling champagne in France, number three in the world, and number four in the United Sates. In Japan, brand awareness was low, therefore we decided to achieve higher recognition by using the slogan, “The champagne the French drinks the most”. We implemented a PR strategy by creating a new champagne culture where Nicolas Feuillatte is a champagne to splurge on an ordinary day and not only on a special occasion. Since 2021 was a year where we had to plan our PR within a COVID world, we effectively combined media and social media influencers to create a “scene” of enjoying champagne at home. Since the PR was for a signature product and not a new product, to create newsworthiness, we built a story and events around the spring cherry blossom viewing and summer Weaver Festival. We communicated the qualities of each product by conducting online events, inviting media and popular lifestyle and food influencers.
For the event, we gifted influencers with a bottle of champagne and matching Japanese ingredients to “celebrate Japanese festivities with champagne”. At Candlewick, our giftings are created with careful selection of items and wrappings by keeping in mind the brand image and message, so that the receiver can experience the brand from the gift. For this event, we wanted to create a cherry blossom experience even at home, so we wrapped the cherry blossom champagne with a matching fabric. For the Weaver Festival, we commissioned a Japanese illustrator living in Paris to create a letter and postcard which we gifted together with the champagne and a bamboo leaf. We successfully communicated the brand message to our target consumers through news articles and social media posts displaying the enjoyment of Nicolas Feuillatte champagne through the seasons, introducing product qualities, new food pairings, and the brand vision. As the trade was also involved in this event, we were able to start establishing PR strategy combined with sales. The Instagram Live with the cooking specialist was viewed approximately 20,000 times, and many new food pairing posts were uploaded onto Instagram. As a result of our successful PR, the headquarter of Nicolas Feuillatte shared this project to their global PR. At Candlewick, we aim not only to promote a one-time event, but we base our PR strategy on deepening our client’s brand understanding. We design communication sustainably by digging deeper on how to communicate brand value. Example article here