Uncorking Success: Wine Paris & Vinexpo Paris 2024
For many, Wine Paris & Vinexpo Paris (WPVP) has become the hottest wine and spirits trade event of the year, bringing together top producers and professionals from around the world. But with its 2024 edition, WPVP raised the bar higher, challenging itself to offer #MORE – more to discover, more talented people to meet, and more new ideas to inspire the wine and spirits industries. In the competitive trade fair arena this would require a powerful and targeted boost to its global pulling power in order to claim the top spot as the international event for the drinks trade.
To secure success, WPVP tasked FirstPour with creating a strategic multi-channel and multi-country campaign for its 2024 edition, driven by two primary objectives:
Build brand awareness and generate excitement for the event.
Motivate ticket purchases.
The Sorting Table: Partnership Strategy
Central to the campaign's success was the meticulous selection of digital ambassadors, featuring six respected B2B wine and spirits communicators, each bringing their own unique voice, expertise and audience to the table. Their reach spanned 14 target markets, ensuring a thorough and wide-ranging communication of WPVP's global appeal. FirstPour's criteria for these Ambassadors were stringent, evaluating the quality of their content, industry influence, and their following in key countries. At the end of this international search, FirstPour presented a powerhouse team poised to amplify WPVP's message across platforms and borders.
Fermentation: Multi-channel Advertising
A campaign targeting such a niche audience of wine and spirits professionals in multiple countries called for a strategic multi-channel approach. Each ambassador created their own series of posts to promote the event to their respective followers. FirstPour then ran more than 80 ad lines across 4 different campaign types to target users at different stages of the purchasing funnel (top, middle, bottom), leveraging platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn to maximise reach, engagement and, ultimately, sales.
RESULTS & INSIGHTS
The Final Blend: Bringing Social Media to Life
Blending a digital and in-person approach, the campaign culminated in four of the ambassadors forming an expert panel in a seminar moderated by FirstPour at WPVP 2024. This popular and interactive session, titled ‘The Future of Drinks Communication’ , gave weight and integrity to the social media campaign, allowing ambassadors to demonstrate their expertise firsthand and engage with fair attendees in-person, while also providing further coverage live at the event.
Click here to watch the full recording of this event.
FirstPour Director (Richard Morley) with Vinexpo Ambassadors (Amelia Singer, Archie Patel, Adrian Michalcik and Alistair Cooper)
In the Glass: Conclusion
In summary, the success of the campaign came down to three key elements. Firstly, the careful selection of the right B2B ambassadors, who created scroll-stopping content for their target audiences of wine and spirits trade, achieving a result of 956% link clicks over target. Second, the meticulous and adaptive execution of the multi-channel, multi-country paid media strategy that achieved 23 times the return on ad spend. Finally, hosting an in-person seminar at the event enriched the experience for attendees and followers, bringing the campaign to life, quite literally. This winning combination not only brought #MORE to the WPVP show, but it also positively contributed to the 14% increase in visitor attendance in 2024.
