Church Road virtual wine tasting

Gourmet Traveller hosted our first-ever virtual wine tasting event in June with Church Road Wines, and what a success it was. Initially planned as an intimate reader dinner, we quickly pivoted to create this Covid-friendly online event for our client who was looking to enhance Church Road’s presence in the Australian wine market. In a few short weeks, we were able to drive brand awareness across the Gourmet Traveller audience, and over 400 readers quickly registered for the event. 150 attendees pre-ordered the Church Road Wines wine-tasting pack for $95.99 to be delivered directly to their home ahead of the night. Even better, 100% of the surveyed attendees said they would purchase Church Road wine again.

“Like many brands, as we went into lock-down we needed to adapt our plans to ensure that we could continue engaging our wine lovers from a distance. Church Road and Gourmet Traveller had planned to hold an event for 50 people in Sydney, however with lock-down we needed to work closely together to brainstorm ideas  for the changed conditions, this enabled us to deliver our first virtual wine tasting event as a business. As a result we were able to really open up the event and we reached hundreds of people across Australia and New Zealand. The event was a huge success and it was great to receive feedback of how much guests enjoyed it and looked forward to being part of more virtual wine tastings. As a business we will be looking to host similar virtual events in the future, as we were so pleased with the results”. PERNOD RICARD

The wine-tasting was hosted by Gourmet Traveller editor Joanna Hunkin, award-winning chef Ben Shewry (Attica restaurant) and Chris Scott, chief winemaker at Church Road Winery in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. Whilst the attendees could pre-order the wine-tasting selection, alternatively they could simply enjoy the educating conversation about the wine industry and Church Road Wine’s three most distinctive drops. Ben Shewry also created a bespoke food menu for the occasion to recreate and pair with the wine.

The event was a brilliant example of how the Gourmet Traveller and Are Media event team collaborated quickly and creatively with the client Pernod Ricard and their agency Mint Partners, to produce a reimagined event that still delivered on the campaign objective. We sought to raise the profile of Church Road Wines in Australia, but through the online forum we also welcomed wine-lovers from as far as New Zealand, America and Italy. The virtual wine-tasting event not only increased awareness to a target demographic via Gourmet Traveller, but also drove significant direct product sales before the event and went on to transform attendees into repeat customers.

The accompanying native content and social posts performed strongly too. The average time spent reading the native article promoting the event was 18% higher than our Gourmet Traveller average. And the best performing Gourmet Traveller organic Instagram post reached 25,360 people, with an engagement rate that was 12% above the brand’s average social engagement rate.

If you would like to hear how you can work with Are Media and our leading portfolio of brands to produce a custom event to meet your campaign objectives, get in touch with us now.

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