Shaking Up Hennessy’s Socials
Mixed with culture, served cold
Hennessy. A legendary cognac with 250 years of heritage. Everyone knows the name, but not everyone is aware that Hennessy can be mixed to bring more flavor, depth and complexity to cocktails. Young people struggle to imagine other ways of drinking it beyond neat or very simple mixes.
We needed to shake up brand perceptions and build on Hennessy’s legacy for a new generation – showing its versatility and shift it from your dad’s drink to a cognac that moves at the speed of culture. So we went straight to where culture lives, and took over Hennessy’s global Instagram page.
First, we backed the ones who already get it but struggled to order their Henny cocktails. We created a set of handy tools to make their bar calls as smooth and fun as possible: swipeable carousels to skip awkward bartender explanations, merch and stickers featuring cocktail recipes, and club stamps with Henny cocktail orders that glow in the dark.
Next, we turned key cocktail ingredients into recipe cards by printing Henny mixes right on the fruits. That’s how even grapefruits have spoken and they said “Henny-Paloma” loud and clear.
Then we dropped a series of eye-catching idents tailored for social feeds, inspiring people to loosen up about cognac and have fun with how they shake or stir Hennessy cocktails – on a buzzing phone or riding a mechanical bull. To show that Henny cocktails can be mixed anywhere, not just at a bar or a house party, we also created one-of-a-kind fashion accessories to inspire people to mix on the go.
And because culture moves fast, we stayed in the mix with reactive assets built around key cultural moments:
For the perfect serve, we marked the US Open by mixing a Hennessy cocktail inside a tennis ball collector. For Halloween, we summoned the spirits. For the Oscars, we shook the red carpet. For Thanksgiving, we helped people survive family gathering drama. Whatever the moment, we found a way to pour Hennessy into it.
And of course, we teamed up with the voices already driving culture. From Hennessy gift-wrapping hacks for Christmas with @claudyamoreira and @keikofuroshiki, to Henny Buzzer Challenge for the NBA season with @tolutemi and @skylarmarshai, to GRWM tutorials for NBA fashionistas with @thenotoriouskia.