If Moët Hennessy made a movie, rosé might be the most misunderstood cast member. Rather unfairly, rosé has become associated with all the ‘pink’ occasions: Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and bottomless brunches. As makers of some of the world’s finest wines and champagnes, Moët Hennessy challenged us to find a way to allow rosé to break free of this typecasting.

For the very first time in their history, they wanted to bring together four of their Maisons into one pop-up installation. (Maison is just a fancy French word for brand)

And our stage; Selfridges in London. This was a terrific opportunity, but it was also no small feat. Especially given that every inch of this legendary department store was already a sensory overload. To stand out and draw shopper attention and interest would not be easy.

To solve a challenge this big, we decided to go small… By creating the world’s smallest cinema: Introducing Rosé Lumière.

Inspired by another pioneering French artform: le cinema. Our Rosé Lumière installation was an Art Deco homage to the many shades of rosé. Naturally, our Instagram-friendly installation included a bar and mini cinema. This allowed Selfridges customers to relax with a glass of wine or a bespoke cocktail, together with cinema snacks all with a rosé twist.

Visitors to our retail pop-up were educated in the nuanced tasting notes of each brand through the ‘movie reviews’ films we had playing behind the bar. And to encourage purchase, we created cinema posters for each brand that could be personalised with customer’s names in the lead role.

Within the mini-cinema we had a unique film extolling the virtues of French joie-de-vie and, of course, lots of great shots of people enjoying rosé.

When our client, Moët Hennessy was invited by Selfridges to utilise the temporary retail space by their Food Hall, they decided to do something completely out of the ordinary. Rather than feature just one of their brands as they would traditionally do, this time they would collect four of their most popular rosé brands together into one activation. This was being driven by the fact that rosé, in all its forms had been trapped in people’s preconceived notions that it was just for Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. To create an activation that would be appropriate for all four of these distinct brands, and also stand out in an already busy retail environment, our strategy was to evoke another French institution: cinema. This eye-catching environment stopped people in their tracks and showed rosé in a whole new light.

Tucked away in the heart of Selfridges, at the foot of the stairs leading to the Food Hall, is a small retail alcove. This rather inauspicious spot is reserved for various retail pop-ups. Given its central location, it’s a high traffic area. However, as it’s essentially in the stairwell, most people walk right past on their way through the store.

We decided our best chance at encouraging shoppers to notice and to stop, was to create something that looked less like a pop-up, and more like a unique shopping experience. Our solution was to create the world’s smallest French cinema, complete with a marquee, bar and mini cinema complete with a tiny screen playing our rosé films. And naturally, this entire experience was set in various shades of pink and rosé. The result was an experience that was unmissable and demanded to be entered.

When the reviews came in for our cinema installation, it was a blockbuster. Vanity Fair, GQ, Hello Magazine, the London Evening Standard, and Falstaff magazine all wrote glowingly about Rosé Lumière with dozens of other blogs all listing it among their “Best things to do in London” lists. In all, 26 major publications ran stories about our pop-up activation and the coverage totalled over 69M earned impressions.

But best of all, with a 36% lift in sales versus similar activations, Rosé Lumière has become one of Moët Hennessy's most successful retail pop-ups.

The best review of all however has actually come from Selfridges, who due to the strong lift in rosé sales, decided to extend our theatre’s run for an additional six months. Now, thanks to the world’s smallest cinema and our extended run, even more people have a chance to see rosé in a whole new light.