Learn more
Learn more
In 2023, Grey Goose briefed Example to build cultural authority in the Australian premium vodka market. The brand had strong global equity but needed to earn genuine relevance in a competitive, sophisticated drinks landscape.
The result: 670% year-on-year growth in earned media reach. 408 million total earned impressions. Coverage across every major Australian lifestyle, food, and drinks publication. A brand that went from category presence to category leadership in its earned media position.
This is what we did and why it worked.
The stated brief was campaign support for a specific seasonal activation. The real brief was bigger: how does Grey Goose become the premium vodka brand that Australian media, influencers, and consumers genuinely want to talk about?
That is a different brief. It requires a different strategy. And it requires a longer commitment than a single campaign.
We built an earned-first approach anchored in cultural credibility rather than paid media amplification. The principle: if you pull the paid media tomorrow, does the story still travel? If the answer is no, the idea isn't strong enough.
We identified the specific cultural moments and communities where Grey Goose had the right to play: premium dining, Australian arts and design, the Sydney and Melbourne social scenes where genuine premium consumption lives. We built the brand's presence inside those communities before generating coverage about them.
Over 12 months, we ran a programme of media and influencer partnerships, editorial pitching, event partnerships, and brand ambassador cultivation that placed Grey Goose inside the conversations its target audience was already having.
We pitched specific editorial angles to specific journalists, not mass coverage but targeted placement. We partnered with the cultural voices who genuinely consumed the brand. We built relationships with the restaurant and bar community that would become the brand's natural habitat in media stories.
The drinks category in Australia is one of the most competitive earned media environments in the market. The brands that win are not the ones with the biggest budgets. They are the ones with the clearest story, the most targeted approach to media, and the patience to build cultural authority over time rather than chasing short-term impression counts.
Example has run retained PR programmes for Grey Goose, Don Julio 1942 (129% sales uplift), Patron Tequila, Bacardi, Bombay Sapphire, and Moutai across Australia and the Asia Pacific. If you are building a drinks brand in this market, we would welcome a conversation about what an earned-first approach could do for you.
