In 2020, Food Network and Cointreau partnered for the Mix it Up with Cointreau integrated campaign. Cocktail making at home has never been more relevant – Cointreau is looking to capitalize on this trend and lean into their recent growth momentum to reach their target audience (“The New Host”), inspire both classic and creative home cocktail making and solidify Cointreau as the iconic orange liqueur. “The New Host” audience is comprised of A25-44, they are 60% Female/40% Male and are affluent. “The New Host” is knowledgeable about alcohol, interested in cocktails and culinary enthusiasts. With more time at home, consumers are seeking out ways to make their favorite cocktails at home, with the same trusted brands they’ve always loved. Food Network inspires cocktail-enthusiasts everywhere to enjoy both timeless Cointreau classics and new creative innovations at home, keeping this iconic orange liqueur top-of-mind as we encourage the audience to Mix it Up with Cointreau. The objectives of the campaign were to drive relevance and increase awareness of Cointreau and its role in classic cocktails to recruit new clients and build relevancy and increase frequency among existing Cointreau clients via the Cointreau Cocktail Hour initiative. Cocktail hour is an informal occasion instantly recognizable to Cointreau clients. Similar to Margarita Monday, it is one that clients participate in actively on social media, but at even greater scale. It’s relevant for any cocktail, any day of the week, making it the perfect tool to drive frequency among existing clients.
Food Network is the most trusted source for recipe inspiration and information—from traditional favorites to trend-driven recipe innovations, consumers come to us for all things food and drink, all year long. Food Network leveraged their trusted, culinary expertise and authentic brand voice to create custom editorial video, photography, recipes, Instagram stories, and editorial galleries with Cointreau integration. All content was aggregated on a highly engaging Cointreau Cocktail Hour custom hub and distributed via strategic amplification tactics across Food Network’s site, social, direct-to-consumer and TVE platforms for maximum reach.
In addition to the custom integrated content, Food Network highlighted several editorial appetizer & hors d’oeuvres recipes on the custom hub to compliment the Cointreau’s cocktail recipe content to create a rich and holistic cocktail hour experience for users. Custom editorial videos and custom recipes included classic cocktail recipes (The Cosmopolitan) and “with a twist” cocktail recipes (Spicy Jalapeno Margaritas, Frozen Watermelon Margaritas, Harvest Cosmopolitan, Apricot Honey Margarita, Cucumber-Mint Margarita) to show how Cointreau is an essential ingredient in both classic and creative cocktails, especially margaritas.
Custom editorial galleries extended the cocktail hour theme and Cointreau’s key messaging points with round-ups of “Creative Margarita Recipes” and “Easy Cocktail Hour Ideas.” Cointreau was also integrated into a live cocktail-making class on the Food Network Kitchen direct-to-consumer app on 9/25. FNK talent, Justin Chapple, hosted the class and taught fans how to make a Pomegranate-Fig Margarita, just in time for Fall.
The Cointreau Cocktail Hour custom hub and flex ad high impact unit featured beautifully designed graphics that visually tied all creative campaign elements together. Cointreau’s campaign flight ran from 8/31 – 9/30. Content featured a variety of late summer/early fall recipes to remain seasonally relevant.
The Food Network and Cointreau Mix It Up with Cointreau campaign was an overall success and met or exceeded expectations. The Cointreau Cocktail Hour custom hub exceeded performance expectations, with 90% of visits coming from mobile and a 1:39 average time spent. All custom editorial videos exceeded engagement and/or completion rate benchmarks on at least one social platform. Performance was the strongest on Instagram in completion rate, CTR and engagement scores with share scores at 1.9x benchmark and comment scores at 1.2x benchmark. This campaign also successfully reached Cointreau’s target audience. Women were most likely to engage, while men were most likely to watch to completion and click. Food Network’s frequent engagers were the top performing audience, and A35-44 was strongest by age. Overall, the strongest engagement and CTRs were seen among W35-44 across Facebook and Instagram. Additionally, Food Network conducted a Facebook Brand Lift Study on this campaign and saw significant lifts in both Ad Recall and Abstract Favorability.
Key campaign results include: 162K+ visits to sponsored site content, including the custom hub, 424K+ page views of sponsored site content, 5.5MM+ social video views, 9.6MM+ social flat post impressions, 120K+ engagements on social video and flat posts, 1.4MM+ Instagram story frame views, 10MM display/flex ad impressions and 7.3MM+ TVE impressions. Overall, Food Network and Cointreau successfully met their objective of driving awareness and building relevancy of Cointreau for “The New Host” target audience through high-performing and engaging custom content and effective high impact multi-platform ad placements and distribution tactics.
