Publicis Machine's Martell Cognac VS Single Distillery influencer campaign connects

You create something as smooth, as cool, and just as trendsetting as they are. And you make it personal.

Enter the Martell Cognac VS Single Distillery. And the campaign, from Publicis Machine, that piqued the curiosity and opened the minds of these influential individuals.

“It’s not easy to influence an influencer!” says Publicis Machine group executive creative director Gareth McPherson.

“These are the people who set the trends, not follow them. They don’t want to Instagram the same brand that someone else showcased on social media yesterday. If we wanted to get them talking, we knew we had to give them something different to talk about, something special, something completely individual.”

The team achieved exactly this with the campaign to launch Martell’s Cognac’s VS Single Distillery, a new cognac expression from the leading Martell brand that is prompting cognac connoisseurs around the world to Be Curious, and try something new.

To tempt local palates, Publicis Machine teamed up with renowned illustrator Lazi Mathebula, who designed 80 individual gift packs, featuring hand-drawn portraits of influencers including Da LES, Iam PH, Fistazmixwell, Khenzero, Reason, Sphectacula, DJ Naves, Thesis Lifestyle, Cedric Nzaka and Lebogang.

These packs were hand-delivered to each of these influencers by Martell Cognac lifestyle brand ambassador Hussain van Roos.

On first inspection, the packs looked sealed, but a closer look revealed a thin golden thread, right next to a single line: “Now do what you do best: Be Curious.”

Pulling the thread opened the packs - and visually also opened the ‘mind’ of the portrait - revealing a bottle of VS Single Distillery, each of which was individually inscribed with the influencer’s name.

“The key to the success of this campaign was its personalised approach,” says Martell Cognac lifestyle brand ambassador Hussain van Roos.

“Not only did we, as a brand, make the effort to reach out to the selected influencers personally, we did it with a gift pack that was created specifically for them, to encourage them to generate rich and high-value content on their social media platforms.’’

The personalisation paid dividends. In the first two days post-delivery, the campaign created a massive 2,342,215 social media impressions, and resulted in a 25% increase in followers on Martell Cognac’s Instagram page.

“Martell Cognac is a brand that is rooted in curiosity. By recognising this, and using it as the foundation of our concept, we believe we created a campaign that resonates with both the brand and its target audience,” McPherson concludes.