Challenged by Treasury Wine Estates to create a new wine brand for millennials, we identified a gap in the US market: women account for the majority of wine consumption in the US, yet the wine aisle remains stocked with outdated, condescending clichés, targeting women with Rosé, White Zin, and other similarly "lite" wines (in taste, calories, and branding) “for her”. Rooted in this insight, we set out to create a new product that would speak to empowered millennial women with relevance.

Our challenges: Develop and implement a new brand for millennial women from the ground up, and establish credibility and relevance with a savvy, skeptical and low-engaged target consumer.

Our objectives: Deliver retail buy-in at launch, and excite retail and trade within an already crowded category.

Our target audience — empowered millennial women — is motivated by an appreciation for authenticity, believes that women’s achievements have been airbrushed out of history, and above all, is tired of the category’s femvertising clichés.

With these insights, we created EMBRAZEN: a series of bold wines that celebrates real women from past to present, and which commits to its progressive ethos through a purpose-driven brand platform. Each EMBRAZEN varietal spotlights a historic female pioneer, and uses AR-enabled packaging to bring the heroines to life and share their stories.

From launch, EMBRAZEN’s Take Up the Torch program has been at the heart of the brand. This women’s empowerment platform awards a $25,000 grant to help modern trailblazers further their cause.

By shining a spotlight on heroines of the past and supporting today’s generation of women pioneers, EMBRAZEN invites shoppers to Raise a Glass, Shatter Expectations, and Unscrew History.

Launched with an AR experience and a women’s empowerment initiative that awards $25,000 annually to modern trailblazers, EMBRAZEN rethinks what the category can offer a new generation of consumers.

Each varietal activates a set of 3 unique AR experiences through the Living Wine Labels App; by simply scanning the label with a smartphone, shoppers can bring the heroine on the label to life to share her story of igniting change.

Our unapologetic brand tagline, “History Unscrewed”, is expressed by the groundbreaking women on our labels, who are typically underrepresented in history books. (It’s also expressed more cheekily by the wines’ screwcap tops.) We hope to Unscrew History by giving more inspiring, empowered women more time in the spotlight.

From the bold varietals (without a hint of “lite” or rosé), to the prominent women on our smart labels, EMBRAZEN brings a proudly different aesthetic to the pinkwashed wine aisle.

Announced in August, 2018, EMBRAZEN is still very much in launch phase, but has already created massive PR buzz far beyond the wine aisle, garnering 165MM impressions and delivering retail excitement to become Treasury Wine Estates’ fastest-ever listed new brand.

The brand’s velocity at shelf — the units per store per week that EMBRAZEN sells in the stores in which it is ranged — places EMBRAZEN within the top 5% of all new innovations launched by Treasury Wine Estates.

And on social media, EMBRAZEN’s Instagram community delivered an organic MoM growth of 204% from Jan-Feb 2019, compared to the industry average of 6-8%.