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‘La dolce vita’ is best experienced in a cinema with a prosecco in hand, at least according to the Italian wine brand Santa Margherita.
To celebrate the 70th anniversary of Santa Margherita’s Prosecco Superiore, Santa Margherita joined the 2022 ST. ALi Italian Film Festival as its official Gold Partner.
Now showing in Palace Cinemas across Australia, the film festival presents contemporary Italian blockbusters alongside cherished classics on the big screen.
Cinemagoers who attended the opening nights across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane encountered Santa Margherita’s pop-up bars serving the Italian aperitivo, which sought to transport guests to the rolling wineries of Venice.
“Both wine and cinema are deeply entrenched in Italian culture and represent the very best in Italian charm,” Santa Margherita’s Asia-Pacific regional manager Erika Gallon tells Marketing.
“Winemaking, like cinema, is an art form that has been handed down through generations, both of which are enhanced in the comfort of family, friends and food. Cinematography, when combined with wine, leads to extraordinary moments.”
The partnership was a chance to align two family-owned brands steeped in rich heritage. It also offered Santa Margherita access to an “educated, cultured and creative audience”.
“The Italian Film Festival is the biggest celebration of Italian cinema outside of Italy, with an ever-growing audience of over 80,000 film lovers nationally. It’s not every day that we’re given an opportunity to access a hard to reach audience segment in not only one geographic location, but nationwide.”
Santa Margherita goes local
Despite the geographical spread of its activations, the wine brand wanted to be able to retain a sense of local trust among the target audience.
“The local, family feel of Palace Cinemas, which has built up brand equity and trust in its own right for decades, grants Santa Margherita the ability to not only talk directly to our target audience, but directly engage with them in person,” explains Gallon.
To bolster the interstate activations, the winemaker enlisted the support of premium influencers like Cook Like An Italian host Silvia Colloca to build brand equity within the competitive Australian imported wines category.
“By working with local influencers like Silvia Colloca, Santa Margherita further elicits trust in the local market and extends our key campaign messaging to a trusted and cultured audience,” Gallon adds.
To amplify the sponsorship and milestone beyond theatres, Santa Margherita entered into a paid partnership with Are Media. It opted for a multi-channel approach to generate greater awareness across Gourmet Traveller, Now to Love and across WHO magazine’s social media channels.