Y Series, a South Australian wine brand under Hill-Smith Family Estates, utilised the first NFL game day in Melbourne to unveil NFL-themed cans and they proved to be a winner.
Yes, you read that correctly. Melburnians, NFL fans and anyone who simply wanted to be at the MCG for the first ever regular-season NFL game in Australia could drink wine out of a can.
B&T sat down with Jack Glover, executive director of marketing and sales at Hill-Smith Family Estates, to discuss the cans and how the brand is fighting for wine to be the drink of choice at sporting occasions.
And, like a lot of the best marketing, it’s a tale of necessity being the mother of invention.
“The MCG operates self serve now. So you can’t pour wine by the glass and sell it to people. And if we wanted our product to be available to the 100,021 people that were at the game, we needed to look at cans as an option. Which was good for us because it’s something we’ve been curious about,” Glover told B&T.
Since the NFL game, Y Series has fielded plenty of questions from its retail partners about whether it will continue down the canned wine path.
The limited-edition cans gave fans another option alongside the beers and RTDs being served at the game, while giving Y Series the chance to test whether wine could work in a different sporting environment.
Y Series is the first wine partner of the NFL across Australia and New Zealand, giving the brand a new audience to introduce to wine, and a new sporting occasion to sell it in.
“Our business is in and around what people are choosing to drink when they’re out and about, or what they’re choosing to take home and drink there. There’s no reason why you can’t disrupt that occasion at a sporting event. In my experience in previous jobs around activating wine at events, a main priority is to make people aware that it’s actually there and it is a choice,” added Glover.
He also said wine is often hidden at the bottom of fridges in sporting venues, with brands competing for attention against beer and RTDs. Being an official partner gave Y Series a chance to change that and put wine more clearly in front of fans.
“Wine shows up brilliantly in horse racing, so there’s a great opportunity to extend that into more sports. It’s not a guarantee, but it does give us a space to play in and an audience to talk to that we don’t talk to as much as we normally would,” he said.
For its first trial in the sporting space, Y Series passed with flying colours.
“We sold about just over 30,000 glasses of wine, and probably close to 20,000 of those would have been in ground. That’s 20 per cent of people trialling wine at a sport event, which is super pleasing for us,” said Glover.
Outside of limited edition cans, Y series had a large presence at the game.
Y Series kicked off its partnership with a custom-built, NFL-inspired locker room to Melbourne Park through the immersive Y Zone. The Y Zone captured the colour, energy and theatre of an American game day in the heart of Melbourne.
The activation formed part of the official NFL Kickoff Festival, running at Melbourne Park on 10–12 September ahead of Australia’s first-ever regular-season NFL game.
At the centre of the experience was The Y Series Locker Room, where fans can discover their ideal Y Series wine match and choose their ‘wine team’. The colourful installation showcased four distinctive teams: Team Grigio, Team Shiraz, Team Pinot and Team Prosecco complete with jerseys, helmets, footballs and game-day styling.
Fans were also the among the first to sample the Y Series x NFL wine cans, enjoy American-inspired game-day bites and put their game-day instincts to the test with Spin to Win, offering the chance to score exclusive Y Series prizes and merchandise.
“People floated into the traditional fan zone, and they wanted to be engaged with the NFL. So having things like spin to win, prizes, having the the cans and our bottles, which are limited edition NFL branded, made everyone feel part of the activity,” said Glover.
