Client: Remy Martin (1738, XO), Bruichladdich, Mount Gay
Objectives:
To bolster the relationship that Remy Martin’s core brands have with restaurants while also creating dining experiences for consumers where they can try Remy Martin’s brands in a restaurant environment. To also help develop an interest among the younger generation for drinking cognac.
Results:
We first started working with Remy Martin in 2016. We began by simply incorporating Remy Martin XO into some of our high profile chef events during the London Restaurant Festival. We then starting to help generate excitement around the Grand Tonic – and cocktail using Remy Martin designed as an aperitif alternative to a gin & tonic or a glass of champagne. We did this by offering it as a welcome drink across over a dozen leading London restaurants during the London Restaurant Festival. Keen to reach an American Express audience we incorporated these drinks into the dining events we create for Amex Invites across the year. A good example of how our client relationships can work to mutual benefit. With Bruichladdich, exceptional single malt from Islay, we created a Restaurant-Hopping Tour where customers got to try a different cocktail with the whisky alongside a small plate of food. Likewise with Mount Gay.
Client: Pernod Ricard (Monkey 47)
Objectives:
To bring the Monkey 47 gin brand to life in a suitably maverick and engaging way across Europe.
Results:
In 2015 Gastro worked with London’s leading restaurant and bar designers, David Collins studio, to create The Rosebery . This is a 1966 Routemaster bus converted at the highest level into a cocktail bar and dining room. At launch it was featured in Vanity Fair magazine and on Channel 4 television.
Monkey 47 branding was subtly applied to The Rosebery and a three-month tour of Europe created. This took place from August-November 2018 and took in ten cities in Germany, Denmark and France. During the day, bartenders, bar owners and key industry opinion formers attend events on board The Rosebery.
At night, groups of customers and social influencers are invite to parties on board.
Gastro owns and operates Rosebery Brand Ltd.
Client: City of London Gin
Objective:
Opened in 2012, the City of London Distillery was the first gin distillery in The City for nearly 200 years. The gin, distillery, bar and shop has received plaudits, and several awards, but with almost 300 ‘artisan’ distilleries opening in the UK in the past ten years the marketplace in the UK is, quite literally, soaked. We were approached to help raise awareness with consumers and, importantly, to help make introductions to the restaurant industry to encourage listing.
Results:
Incorporating City of London Gin into the London Restaurant Festival in a Restaurant-Hopping experience around St James’s was a natural fit. This involves 100 consumers – predominantly American Express card members – visiting five restaurants in groups of 20. They have a small plate of food in each and try a gin cocktail – and learn about City of London Gin through collateral branding and meeting the makers. Three goals scored: consumer reach, brand awareness and restaurant relationships. We also actively encourage our significant LRF base to visit the distillery and take the tour.
Client: Zonin Wines
Objectives:
This family-owned company is the largest vine-growing, and winemaking, business in Italy. Zonin UK was established in 2006 to help market, and distribute, their extensive portfolio. We were approached in 2017 with a particular brief to focus on the restaurant sector.
Results:
Establishing Zonin Wines as an ‘Official Wine Partner’ of the London Restaurant Festival afforded them a significant number of benefits. Zonin Wines are used in several paired Tasting Menu experiences and also a Restaurant-Hopping Tour as well as the festival’s awards evening. This satisfies three key goals for Zonin Wines: customers drinking their wines; branding and wine descriptions across all menus – with producers giving talks; and, critically, introductions to the restaurants and their wine buyers. We also arranged several other benefits such as a Zonin Wines offer to all 350 restaurants involved in our Festival Menu programme – this helped establish more conversations with restaurants. We also arranged two wine-tasting evening with almost 200 guests where Zonin were the exclusive wine producers and showed over 40 of their wines.
Client: Chalié Richards
Objective:
This wine wholesaler was founded in around 1685 and supplied wine to six successive monarchs from George IV to George VI but spent decades as a dormant entity until being purchased by Halewood International in a bid to revive it. A key market for them is the restaurant industry and we were approached to help them grow their influence in that area – and ultimately foster relationships that will lead to new clients, and sales, for Chalié Richards.
Results:
Establishing Chalié Richards as an ‘Official Wine Partner’ of the London Restaurant Festival afforded them a significant number of benefits. Chalié Richards’s wines are used in just over 20 festival events ranging from paired Tasting Menus and Gourmet Odysseys to Restaurant-Hopping Tours and the festival’s awards evening. This satisfies three key goals for Chalié Richards: customers drinking their wines; branding and wine descriptions across all menus – with producers giving talks; and, critically, introductions to the restaurants and their wine buyers. We also arranged several other benefits such as a Chalié Richards offer to all 350 restaurants involved in our Festival Menu programme – this helped establish more conversations with restaurants. In some cases – we personally joined Chalié Richards at meetings with key restaurants to make introductions.
