Will champagne become a mass prestige category ?

Will champagne become a mass prestige category?

The latest outdoor campaign on the streets of Paris, run by Les Vignerons de Champagne, might surprise the passers-by: the ads suggest that champagne, as a category, at least in France, might no longer want to follow the norms and constraints of luxury advertising. The ads suggest drinking champagne accompanied by a burger, pizza, or radish, in less than glamorous moments and locations. This trivialization of the moment of consumption might signal "the end of the dream", as association with fast food signals rather the mass consumption than long term brand building through image marketing.

The reason for this campaign is quite obvious: champagne, a wine of joie de vivre and celebration, has been particularly affected by the global economic crisis and consumer moods related to Covid-19. It is suffering a historic drop in its shipments, according to the Comité Champagne, cited by Decanter, in its Aug 18 online edition.

Given this recent sales drop, champagne brands have three options: either remain luxury (especially if they are owned by big groups like LVMH and Pernod Ricard), be bought (like another luxury brand from the car industry, Rolls Royce, which was bought by BMW), or grow, but no longer as a luxury, but as a premium brand.

Luxury brands are fragile: look at perfumery, where most brands evolved slowly to mass prestige and progressively abandoned the codes of luxury.

Smaller, independent champagne brands might experience an existential crisis right now. That is why we might see some M&A in this area pretty soon.