A grocery store advertising approach unlike anything you’ve ever seen before – the UK’s largest wine retailer, Tesco, opened a fantastic new temporary bar in London, as a way of showcasing its “finest” brand of wine in the centre of Soho.
It was experiential marketing at its best.
The pop-up experience was created in an attempt to allow customers to experiment with the new range on a more “engaged” level – permitting them to try a wide range of new and different wines. Nick Jackman – who runs the “finest” brand for Tesco, announced that the concept had been in the works since December of 2015.
Experiential marketing is evolving
Tesco’s move towards an experienced-based approach to marketing marks a huge leap for the connection between wine retail, and the on-trade. Within the independent sector, there’s been a significant boom in wine stores that merge both off, and on-trade elements into a single site.
Tesco’s latest exploration comes as a natural progression to the Waitrose wine bars, and grazing areas that first appeared in 2014, and the Aldi pop-up wine shop in Shoreditch.
All of the “finest” wines that were introduced during the pop-up experience were available for around £3-5.50 per glass, and allowed Tesco to highlight around 48 wines from its own-label premium range.
At the same time, for £7, the retailer chose to offer a selection of “discovery wine flights” that were designed to help visitors to discover their new favourite taste.
More About the Pop-up Shop
Alongside simply providing a place for people to enjoy the “finest” range in style, Tesco also used their pop-up shop to provide twice-daily master classes hosted by the wine professional team. The classes covered information like wines with “altitude”, lesser-known varieties and more – leading to an incredible following online.
On opening night, the pop-up store in London saw around 200 people emerging to check out the new and impressive bar.
Despite the fact that the premium range of “own-label” finest wines only included 75 different options to choose from, the biggest draw came from the existing brand recognition that Tesco boasts, alongside the fun and excitement of a novel, and limited-edition place to test the wines in a social setting.
Tesco announced that they are also interested in exploring further experiential marketing events in the future, as they see it as a great opportunity to expand awareness of their “finest” brand. In other words, customers could have a lot more to see from Tesco, and their range of tasty treats.
Hotcow is a non-traditional creative agency that specialises in experiential marketing that goes viral. Our campaigns generate buzz through crowd participation, PR and content sharing. Contact us on 0207 5030442, or email us on info@hotcow.co.uk.
