Our objective
British vodka brand AU Vodka knows how to stop the scroll. From celebrity stunts to savvy Gen Z marketing moves, they’ve mastered the art of grabbing attention.
Their direct-to-consumer ecommerce channel was booming, and they’ve dipped a toe into personalisation, but had kept it low-key. With studies predicting the personalised gifts market will grow by $1.26 billion between 2024-2029, the AU team knew this was something they needed to fix. And fast.
Father’s Day was fast approaching, which is a key gifting holiday all alcohol brands want to capitalise on. AU wanted to relaunch personalised bottles, but with a fresh twist, and they needed a partner who could move quickly, deliver premium executions, and nail the look and feel of their bold, gold-first brand. Speed was key, but so was style.
Our approach
Much like AU Vodka, we don’t like to settle for ‘normal’.
Our in-house team took on the challenge of designing a completely new way to personalise AU’s iconic gold bottles. We spent time in our innovation lab, and discovered a new way to use one of our advanced laser engraving machines to personalise AU Vodka bottles in an entirely bespoke way. By removing a delicate layer of gold to create a ‘peak-a-boo’ style window into the bottle, we let the delicious, flavoured vodka speak for itself.
Once approved, it was all systems go: and less than 90 minutes later, the bottles were live on the AU Vodka website, backed by a Father’s Day campaign spotlighting all three personalised SKUs. Additionally, we also worked with AU to get nearly 300 personalised bottles into the hands of social media content creators to enhance shareability and to create a wave of post-launch buzz.
The user journey was smooth, the visuals bold, and the experience felt just like AU – loud, luxe, and built to share.
Project outcome
The response was instant. One flavour sold out within days, and the momentum has continued.
With orders in the thousands right after launch, personalisation proved to be a major conversion driver and a new gifting route to market for the brand.
Thanks to the influencer packs, we saw the bottles shared across the social media profiles of key content creators – potentially reaching a staggering seven million people.
Customers loved the tailored touch, and AU loved the results. Off the back of the initial success, AU restocked the sold-out SKU and are looking into other expansion opportunities in the personalisation and gifting space.
For AU Vodka, personalisation is officially back – and it’s better than ever.
For us, it’s proof that when bold brands move fast with the right partner, big things happen.
