Division of Labor is the ad agency for startups, but we also work with clients that simply behave like startups. Phantom Wines still behaves like a startup. Bogle Vineyards created the brand, and the Bogle family is involved in nearly every decision the brand makes. 

Division of Labor has worked with several startups and startup founders. The goal with Phantom Wines was to help them move beyond just a special occasion wine. Specifically, Phantom was known as the Halloween wine. They wanted to be much more than that.

When creating an advertising campaign for a wine, it’s important to remember this:

Up to 80% of wine purchase decisions are made at the shelf.

According to Nielsen, 50% to 80% of wine purchase decisions are made at the shelf. That means three things will affect the purchase decision: the name of the wine, the wine label and brand recall. You probably won’t get to name a wine from scratch and if you get to design a label from scratch, please stand in that wine aisle and stare at all the labels for a while. They look tragically the same. So that leaves brand recall.

The vines on the Phantom label have a scary, haunting feel. The last thing they make you think of is flowers. So that’s exactly how we surrounded the brand. Gold flowers. Lots and lots of gold flowers. Those scraggly, twisted vines would bloom. And when people stand at that wall of labels, and see that label, they imagine a scary phantom, blooming.

The campaign ran in social media and in-store. It was a small campaign but it had a big impact and increased sales of the brand outside of Halloween. And that was the whole point 😁