Nothing is like it used to be. A couple of years back I attended a Luxury marketing meeting in Monte Carlo. I was one of the speakers and I spoke about how the younger generation will want to see more things from the Luxury brands than just good old beauty shots of expensive products. A couple of posts back I highlighted the IWC print campaign which is a step in the right direction.

Today however I’m amazed with how prestige cuvée champagne house Krug balances innovation with luxury.

Together with niche luxury art and fashion printing press Visionaire, Krug has created a marvelous piece of pop-up art. The 10 beautifully designed pop-ups have been created by Sophie Calle, Andreas Gursky, Cai Guo-Qiang, Steven Klein, Yayoi Kusama, Alasdair McLellan, Steven Meisel, Guido Mocafico, Nicola Formichetti/Gareth Pugh, Sølve Sundsbø, and Mario Testino. These guys all stand for innovation in their own field. The planning of this campaign is spot on.

Krug has limited the edition to 4,000 numbered copies worldwide and 12 sets with a bottle of Krug Grand Cuvée in a gift box only available at the Ode to Art Gallery in Singapore.

What’s truly nice about this piece is the fact that it’s demonstrates what branding is about today. If you’re looking to spread your brand it’s all about becoming talk of the town and not necessary pay to place your ads all over town.

This activity is about innovation, creativity, partnering with great people, a great print house, the Krug brand, industrial design, video, print, ideas, effect, visuals etc etc etc. There is something for everyone out there.

When you create communication pieces like this they’re spreading them self due to the fact that they offer something unique that is relevant to a multiple of audiences that in their turn spread the content further. In this sense my blog now becomes another branding surface for Krug.

Krug spreads their brand in social networks based on creative and innovative ideas

If your communication initiative is good enough you’ll probably end up with all good branding surfaces. The thing is that bloggers like me and other brand surfaces like to blog about bad stuff too. So make sure your piece of communication is up to the job, otherwise you might end up damaging your brand instead.

So, to conclude this post. What you gotta do is to create brand activities that are absolutely on top of the scale when it comes to innovation and creativity. If you partner up with someone or as in Krug’s case a bunch of great people, your campaign will kick off like never before since there is so much in there for everyone.

ps. I found the campaign on Luxury Insider. Down in Monte Carlo I met the founders of the site, a great bunch of young entrepreneurs.

Danish Brewery, Jacobsen Brewhouse has released the most expensive beer in the world. This little drug is called Vintage Nr. 1. The price tag is €261.

It’s funny. Neil French, legendary copywriter created a campaign for Singapore Press Holdings that was to prove to clients who believed that beer could only be advertised on television, that press was a viable medium. Neil created one of the cooler campaigns ever. Instead of conveying the obvious message in ads he created a product – in this case a beer brand, to prove that press indeed worked great when you needed to advertise beer.

Neil and his team went against all percieved rules. The beer was dark, extremely strong. No classical pouring shots, no male bonding, no status symbols, no babes and the ‘product’ named XO (cognac classification) was designed to look like a mix between a bottle of champagne and beer. Basically Neil broke all rules that could be broken.

The result was an incredible success. Demand for this non-existent product went through the roof and local bar-men were assaulted for not stocking it.

So, when Jacobsen launches the Vintage in a limited edition consisting of 600 bottles the odds are good. The fact that the brewery commissioned Danish artist, Frans Kannik, to create a series of four lithograph labels for the bottles makes the odds even better. Last but not least, the Vintage Nr. 1. has been aged in Swedish and French oach casks for six month.

Last but not least. Never, never stop innovating your brand.