Wine and spirits PR lives or dies on the buzzwords brands choose, since "handmade," "craft," and "small batch" carry very different weight with consumers. Research from The Harris Poll found that 60 percent of consumers say "handmade" or "handcrafted" signals a high-quality product, more than any other descriptor tested. 5W Public Relations, a top 20 US PR agency, food and beverage PR firm, and alcohol marketing and PR agency whose clients have included Three Olives, 1800 Tequila, and Maestro Dobel, breaks down which terms move consumers and how leading wine, spirits, and beer brands have turned that insight into standout campaigns.
What Makes a Great Alcohol PR Campaign?
Rampant competition in the alcohol industry means that brands with imaginative PR campaigns generate renewed excitement, even in a category most consumers already know well. The campaigns below show how leading wine, spirits, and beer brands turned a single creative idea into lasting buzz.
How Have Wine Brands Won With PR Campaigns?
Wine brands earn the same kind of standout PR wins as spirits and beer, usually by pairing the product with a cultural moment rather than leaning on tasting notes alone. Dead Bolt, a red blend produced by Pernod Ricard USA, built its "Break Into It" program around an influencer network of indie rock artists and a touring concert series called Music Cellar, according to a May 2015 case study published by marketing agency Angelsmith. Digital agency EDGE ran the campaign, sampling the wine at intimate live shows instead of a traditional tasting room.
The result: Dead Bolt became the fastest-growing red wine in Pernod Ricard USA's history within a year, taking a top five spot in a category of more than 200 competing red blends, per the same Angelsmith case study. The lesson for wine PR specifically matches the pattern the spirits and beer stunts below prove in a louder register: a memorable, on-brand experience outperforms a straightforward product pitch, whether the reader ends up holding a wine glass, a cold beer, or watching a flying cucumber dirigible overhead.
How Do You Build Pre-Launch Buzz for a New Wine or Vineyard?
A new wine launch, whether it's a single new label or an entire vineyard, needs its own pre-launch buzz-building tactics distinct from the terminology choices above. Four tactics consistently work for wine and vineyard launches specifically.
Controlled suspense outperforms a full reveal. Sharing only general details ahead of a launch, rather than the full story, keeps current and prospective customers checking back for more, and gives the eventual reveal more weight than announcing everything at once.
Visible countdowns build anticipation without overexposure. A countdown timer on the brand's website and social channels reminds an audience a launch is coming, but should stay understated rather than becoming the dominant piece of creative, which can read as more hype than substance.
Limited stock creates its own urgency. Capping available quantity of a new label means the product can sell out even at moderate demand, and the resulting scarcity becomes part of the story reporters and consumers repeat.
Giveaways extend reach through participants' own networks. Asking entrants to share a giveaway on their own social profiles turns each participant into a small distribution channel for the launch, at a lower cost than paid amplification alone.
How Did Heineken Ignite Use Technology to Drive Engagement?
To encourage nighttime partiers to buy more of the drink, Heineken added LED lights and sound and motion trackers to its bottles, so the lights turned on and synced with the beat when someone picked a bottle up at a club. The more unopened bottles on a table, the faster the lights flurried, reinforcing the party mood the brand wanted to sell.
How Did Budweiser's Cups Turn Drinking Into a Social Network?
Budweiser built cups that let people send Facebook friend requests to each other by tapping cups together, pairing the brand with the social habits of its target drinkers. The look was an ordinary plastic cup, but the embedded technology let cups "communicate" with each other on contact. The campaign generated renewed buzz for Budweiser, particularly among younger demographics.
How Did Antarctica Beer Turn Recycling Into a PR Win?
Carnival in Rio, one of the largest festivals in the world, draws over 2 million attendees a year and generates significant littering as a result. Antarctica Beer let attendees scan the code on an empty bottle to receive a free train ticket home, solving a transportation problem for festivalgoers while recovering bottles for recycling and lifting both popularity and sales during the event.
How Did MEDEA Vodka Personalize Gifting With LED Bottles?
MEDEA Vodka, a Dutch brand, released limited-edition bottles with a scrolling LED sticker that displayed messages like "Happy Birthday" or "I Love You," programmable for a custom message and available in different color options. The campaign made the brand more popular in the gift market, introducing new customers while giving existing ones more reasons to buy again.
Creative PR campaigns like these make a brand stand out in the alcohol industry by giving customers a memorable reason to buy beyond the product itself.
Which Alcohol Brands Have Run the Most Out-of-the-Ordinary PR Stunts?
Some alcohol brands go beyond tame marketing campaigns and pursue stunts with far more shock value. These vary widely in cost and scope, but they share a pattern of generating outsized exposure relative to their price tag.
How Did Hendrick's Turn a Flying Cucumber Into a City Tour?
Gin brand Hendrick's launched what it called the world's first flying cucumber dirigible, decorated with a large eye and the words "Hendrick's Gin." Traveling at 35 miles per hour at nearly 1,000 feet, the aircraft was spotted in San Francisco, Austin, Dallas, New York, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, and Chicago.
How Did Suntory Use 3D-Printed Ice to Showcase Craftsmanship?
Japanese whisky producer Suntory worked with creative agency TBWA/Hakuhodo to develop highly detailed ice sculptures, small enough to fit in a standard whisky glass, including designs like a diamond ring, a mermaid, and a bust of Abraham Lincoln. The campaign popularized the sculptures through creative advertising built around the visuals.
How Did Jagermeister's Iceberg Concert Reinforce Its Brand?
Jagermeister hosted a gig with British metal band The Defiled on a drifting iceberg, using the cold setting to tie directly back to the brand's cold signature shot serve. The stunt fit a pattern of outlandish marketing tactics the brand has used repeatedly over the years.
How Did Whyte and Mackay Turn a Crane Into a Pop-Up Bar?
Scotch whisky producer Whyte and Mackay opened a pop-up bar, the Lion's Clyde Bar, on the wheelhouse of the 107-year-old Titan Crane in Glasgow to mark the company's 170th anniversary. Open for only four days, the bar generated enormous interest and was, at the time, one of the smallest bars in Scotland.
How Did Fred Noe's Facebook Bet Turn Into a Jim Beam Tattoo?
Fred Noe promised the internet he would tattoo the Jim Beam logo on his arm if the brand's Facebook page reached a million likes. The inexpensive stunt worked: the page grew from under 250,000 likes to over 2 million, and Noe followed through with the tattoo.
What Do These Campaigns Show About Crafting a Strong Spirits Message?
The top takeaways and current trends in wine and spirits messaging, based on The Harris Poll research referenced above, break down by term and by generation:
- Handmade/handcrafted: 59% say it affects opinion, 48% say it affects buying.
- Artisanal/custom: 46% say it affects opinion, 36% say it affects buying.
- Craft: 44% say it affects opinion, 32% say it affects buying.
- Limited edition: 41% say it affects opinion, 37% say it affects buying.
- Small batch: 31% say it affects opinion, 32% say it affects buying.
Wine and spirits are best described by "limited edition" and "small batch," with 25 to 30 percent of drinking-age Americans calling those terms descriptive of the category, while beer taps into "craft" more strongly, with 52 percent agreeing it fits. "Handmade/handcrafted" and "artisanal" resonate more with foods like chocolate, coffee, and baked goods than with alcohol. By generation, Millennials (18 to 37) respond most to "limited edition," "custom," "artisanal," and "craft," followed by Gen X (38 to 49), Baby Boomers (50 to 68), and Matures (69+), in that order across every term tested.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which buzzwords influence wine and spirits buyers most?
"Handmade" or "handcrafted" affects opinion for 59% of consumers and buying decisions for 48%, more than any other descriptor tested, according to The Harris Poll research referenced above.
Does "craft" work better for beer or spirits messaging?
"Craft" fits beer more strongly, with 52% of Americans agreeing it fits the category, while spirits are better described by "limited edition" and "small batch."
What kind of PR campaigns have worked for wine brands?
Wine brand Dead Bolt built its "Break Into It" campaign around an indie rock influencer network and a touring concert series, becoming the fastest-growing red wine in Pernod Ricard USA's history within a year, according to a case study published by marketing agency Angelsmith.
What kind of PR stunts have worked for spirits and beer brands?
Alcohol brands have generated outsized attention with tactics like Hendrick's flying cucumber dirigible, Suntory's 3D-printed ice sculptures, and Whyte and Mackay's four-day pop-up bar on a historic crane, each pairing a distinctive visual with the brand's identity.
How do you build buzz for a new wine launch specifically?
Controlled suspense, a visible but understated countdown, limited stock, and giveaways that ask entrants to share on their own social profiles are the four tactics that consistently build pre-launch buzz for a new wine label or vineyard, distinct from the terminology choices that drive ongoing messaging.
5W runs food and beverage PR and AI Search (GEO) programs for brands across consumer, B2B, financial services, healthcare, and technology — building the machine-readable footprint that gets brands cited, not just ranked. Learn more at https://www.5wpr.com/practice/geo-optimization.cfm.
