For over 300 years, Martell has been challenging conventions, bridging cultures and communities, but it was time for Martell to recruit the next generation of cognac drinkers in a world where socializing goes beyond the physical space.

The social media landscape presents an existing challenge today for the spirits category. While the top 5 spirits categories decreased in 2019, more dynamic categories such as cognac had a unique opportunity to rise in share of voice during 2020.

Martell set out to promote the stories of those who are challenging the status quo, by living audaciously, and celebrate those who fly high above the rest to push culture, communities, and the world forward.

Leading up to the launch of Martell's new campaign, the brand launched a consumer-first phygital activation. Each activation is a one-month dedicated to a new protagonist who shares Martell's spirit of audacity and leaving a legacy. During the month of December we partnered with Max La Manna to help us promote zero-waste consumption.

For the month of December 2020, in the shadow of Coronavirus, Martell identified Max La Manna as the hero of each month. An award-winning zero waste chef, author and presenter. Max’s mission is to turn the tide on rubbish and breathe new energy into the leftovers and food scraps that are typically destined for landfill.

With Max as our key opinion leader we chose to share our values of sustainability and zero-waste consumption with a series of videos, posts and a live event all on our consumer's favorite platforms: social media.

Along with Max, Martell encouraged more awareness around the food and drinks we consume, where they come from and what happens when we waste it.

Through a series of videos and content, we were able to highlight Max's audacios story, how he enjoys drinking Martell in a zero-waste way, and together planned a phygital event to learn zero-waste recipes that combined his uniqueness with Martell’s legacy.

Max shared three different zero-waste recipes and how to be a responsible consumer. For our sold-out phygital event, the users received an ingredient box that included everything that was necessary to create a zero-waste cocktail. And during the live video, Max taught them how to make it, while explaining what a zero-waste life encompasses.

After being behind its competitors for years, Martell, for the first time ever, reached NUMBER ONE for Share of Engagement in the entire cognac category globally for the year 2020 (30.1%), and skyrocketed in terms of Brand Impressions ranking NUMBER ONE in this category as well (6.8 million impressions and 65K engagements).

Regarding Share of Voice, the brand became the fastest growing brand of the year after stealing over 7% from Hennessy for ourselves, putting the brand at #2 (and approaching #1) for Share of Voice in the cognac category (28.2%). Our high level of improvement has also seemed to stop the competition Remy Martin, D’Ussé and Courvoisier from improving as they stayed consistent compared to 2019.

The campaign forced Martell to replant its goals after surpasing them within just one month of its launch.