VerySpecial.ie
In 2017, Hennessy wanted to make its brand more relevant to
a younger audience in the Irish Market.
Hennessy is a Cognac brand that has been established for over 253 years. While it's a top-shelf brand, it was facing challenges of being perceived as old to younger consumers. Our goal was to reposition the brand as fresh and contemporary while upholding the carefully crafted premium image of this unique drink.
We collaborated with IBM Watson to create an engaging cocktail experience in which an individual’s personality was expertly matched to a bespoke Hennessy V.S cocktail by analyzing their tweets. The use of such technology was a first in the Irish market.
My role
This was my first big campaign in Havas and I was part of a wider team involving developers, a UX designer, product managers and digital strategists.
I was responsible for designing user flow maps, Prototyping, and overall digital production for social media and display ads.
The Challenge
Our client approached us with the main objective of making the Hennessy brand more attractive to younger audiences. Our goal was to reposition the brand as fresh and contemporary while upholding the carefully crafted premium aspect of this unique drink. Keeping the principles of the brand intact, we decided to reinvent what it means to be ‘crafted’.
1. Research
Our target audience for this campaign was millennials that are starting their careers. They are outspoken, engaged in social media and enjoy a night out with friends.
We conducted customer and market research to drive our planning phase. We did a pilot interview with a small group of 8 people from different age groups within the millennial generation to help us better understand how our target audience thinks about the brand.
2. Key insights
Key words our sample group used to describe Hennessy: Dark, Gold, Old, Fancy, Old Man, Brandy glass, Luxury, Expensive.
72% would rather spend money on an experience instead of an expensive product
77% said they liked to go out with friends for drinks at least once a week and;
83% access social media on a mobile device every day, while 56% share
their lives on social platforms
We observed from the key findings of our research that millennials prefer to spend money on experiences than on material things. They love to create meaningful experiences with friends and share them on social media.
They found the product to be inaccessible and perceived it to be for older generations.
81% never tried Hennessy. When asked why they said they thought it was too expensive but didn't know the actual product price
Research
Ideation
Design
Test
Experiences
3. Design Strategy
Keywords we got from previous studies:
Social Media
Empowerment
During our brainstorm, we discussed our findings from previous interviews. Being Millenials ourselves we role-play scenarios how we could align our strategies with Hennessy's business goals.
We created bespoke cocktails with Hennessy to match different personality traits so consumers can view Hennessy not only as an "old man's" drink but as something fun and tasty. We ran several public events in pubs and closed events in the RHA Gallery inviting key public personas and influencers to help us to create the word-to-mouth organic exposure.
To create a fresh experience for our customers we reinvented what craft means using AI experience.
We teamed up with IBM Watson API sentiment analysis and asked consumers to input their Twitter handle and allow Watson API to create a perfect cocktail containing ingredients specifically chosen to complement their personality traits.
Wireframes
Before I designed the wireframe, I needed to lay out the hierarchy of contents with a user flow diagram
1 - The landing page needed to be user-friendly as people would be at an event or in a pub
2 - The analytical results of their personality traits
3 - Upcoming events
The website was going to be launched during events around Ireland's main cities so we simplicity was key. One problem we find during early testings with low fi wireframes was that people might be interested in getting and maybe order different flavours at the bar. With that in mind we updated the user flow diagram to:
The new user flow allowed the consumer to view all the ingredients and personality traits from the other cocktails:
The Muse, The Networker, The Boss & The Artist.
Style guide
We wanted to keep the main core brand for Hennessy but adapt it, so it felt relevant to a younger audience. We wanted to keep the luxury feel, but keep accessibility in mind
The results:
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1 million impressions on Twitter
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3:30 average time spent on the website
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2,600 Hennessy cocktails were made
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4% increase in spontaneous brand awareness
Digital team, Social media production, user flow, prototyping
