GODOT.
May your glass always be half full, never half empty
Godot engaged with two organizations simultaneously in advocacy of Colorado Wine. The Colorado Wine Industry Development Board (CWIDB) is the government group advocating for growers and winemakers under the Department of Agriculture. The Colorado Association of Viticulture and Enology (CAVE) is the state’s largest, wine-focused non-profit primarily focused on events and education.
The easy part
Mountain Winefest was already established as a significant festival outside of Grand Junction. We needed to just make sure that it sold out, which it did every year, and that the sponsors were happy, which they generally were.
Colorado wine’s presence on the Front Range, however, was not as strong. It was less known and not fully embraced in the same way as other Colorado local products. To fix that, we created a muti-year, multi-faceted campaign to reach the new demographic of wine drinker.
Introducing Colorado Wine Week
The foundation of the integrated campaign was our invention of Colorado Wine Week, which paired around 40 restaurants along the front range with Colorado wine makers, developing tasting menus and encouraging exploration.
In addition to introducing the active Denver foodie to Colorado Wine and it’s unusual varietals, the pairings served to advertise the larger Urban Wine Festival that we created, promoted, and produced for our clients.
The main event
At the crux of the solution was Colorado Urban Winefest. We originally produced this day-long event in Denver’s Sculpture Park and later at Infinity Park in Glendale as we grew, hosting around 3000 ticketed guests and 50 wineries from all over the state.
This major initiative added to a 17% increase in the consumption of Colorado Wine through visibility, partnership, and earned media. It was also profitable, paying for itself through sponsorship, ticket sales, and other revenue streams.
Not all heroes fear grapes.
For broadcast and social, we honed in on the individual evangelists who championed the industry against all odds.
Our Wine Hero videos—featuring Dale Katechis, Frank Bonanno, and Governor John Hickenlooper—celebrated these unexpected allies, while our long-form documentary brought winemakers and growers into the spotlight, giving their dedication and stories the recognition they deserve.
