Between heritage and modernity: why are Champagne Houses' limited editions a must for storytelling?
APTD Consulting
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Either gifting, celebration, aesthetics or art, Great Champagne Houses do have a long-standing history with limited editions and most of the time in collaboration with artists. One feet rooted in history and the other already stepping forward in the pursuit of the next, they have always been pioneers when it comes to bottle enhancement. Bizarre, striking, elegant or lavish, these Houses like to build their brand image feeding and growing on decades of heritage. Each of the Great Champagne House possess indeed a captivating legacy filled with stories and surprising anecdotes, such a great fertile ground for Marketing & Communications Managers to exploit.
Therefore, every year is a new challenge for these Houses always striving for excellence and always looking for the perfect match. When found, artist and brand can truly become one and the merger reveals a one-standing, symbiotic relationship, like a happily one-year marriage, where both parties are expressing the quintessence of their crafts, giving birth to a new piece of art.
The best Houses have mastered the art of playing a duet for they have been succeeding in the extraction of one very specific feature to put in the spotlight. Take one feature, make it outrageous and splendid. And so it goes: Veuve Clicquot is recognizable by its well-known orange color, Mumm with its famous Cordon Rouge, Japanese anemones for Perrier-Jou?t whereas Dom Pérignon catches the eye with its shield.
As to enhance some features, many Houses chose to call upon artists to reinterpret their heritage under another perspective, a new prism. History shows indeed numerous collaborations between Champagne Houses and artists, and when art meets Champagne, it always ends well. A few selection of recognized collaboration would be:
Perrier-Jou?t Belle Epoque 120th anniversary
This year has been filled with artistic collaborations and is also a very special date for Perrier-Jou?t for its vintage cuvée “Belle Epoque”, celebrating 120 years of the emblematic flower: the Japanese anemone. Back in 1902, Emile Gallé, one of the leaders of Art Nouveau mouvement, marked the bottle with the Japanese anemone in reminder of the Champagne taste evolving around white flowers and herbal touches.
This year, the House unveiled a limited edition with the Austrian designers duo mischer’traxler (with whom the House have been working for several years) and this time under the sign of wildlife. 70 species originating from Perrier-Jou?t vineyards have been painted on the bottle & eco-box, symbolizing the rich biodiversity evolving in a of the interdependent ecosystem we have all need to preserve.
More than an Ode to tradition and a symbol of legacy, limited editions have become also a way to experience, to bring know-how in the spotlights. So, what’s the end game, really for these Champagne Houses? Is it innovation? Reinterpretation? Creativity? Is it sales growth? Desirability? What about a fantastic opportunity to showcase the brand to the world and give consumers the opportunity dive into their universe? Branding is not anymore about the bottle, the features, the taste, it’s all about this one moment, this ka?ros,* where experience enhances and goes beyond the bottle itself. By indeed enhancing some features, by allowing the melting of musicians, painters, videographers, designers with this one ephemeral moment of the tasting, then Champagne elevates also at the rank of art. It’s no anymore a collaboration, a shared vision, it is a symbiosis.
Consumers can take a deep dive into the new creations because they can connect with the artist as well as the brand. It becomes so much easier to create bridges, and the brand stands more for lifestyle, moment, emotion than label: it has become the ultimate one-of-a-kind experience, catalyzed by art and boosted by imagination.
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The ultimate Krug experience
To that end, Krug is pushing the Champagne experience quite far. The House has always been close to music and like to think that: “Each plot of vines is a musician and our Cellar Master, a conductor selecting those who will together perform the most generous expression of Champagne every year”. They have been exploring the similarities between music and Champagne and found surprising ways to enhance customer experience in that way. In collaboration with Ionna Vautrin, House of Krug crafted a Champagne bubble listening device designed to hear the fizz of the bubbles to enjoy sipping through senses.
More recently, the House revealed a high-end experience tasting box, for the 170th vintage. All the process has been thoroughly prepared all the way from the premium unboxing. First, the consumer is to find the bottle inside of a box set looking like an instrument box case. Then, a pair of custom-made Devialet Gemini headphones is provided with an 8min music pairing. House of Krug and Devialet are offering together the ultimate Champagne experience with the right music pairing to sip Krug. As Devialet says, its all about “listening to Champagne and sipping sound”
While Krug is tapping into the DTC channel allowing the brand to speak directly to the consumer, to penetrate inside their very homes, (even inside their heads/ears for Krug), others Champagne Houses made the choice to connect through another brand building B2B2C Route-To-Market, also crucial for storytelling and for recruiting consumers.
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*Ka?ros is an ancient Greek word meaning “the right, critical, or opportune moment”
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