R/GA’s Grey Goose savvy website in excellent taste

GreyGoose.com mobile phone image

So what becomes the world’s best tasting vodka?  Well, nothing less than one of the slickest, most social media savvy sites now out there in the vast Internet world. 

We are talking about the newly-launched Web destination for Grey Goose premium vodka, which can be seen and savored to the fullest at www.GreyGoose.com

Altogether, the site is the handiwork of more than 20 people who worked at the R/GA office in Chicago, which for about the past year has been the digital agency of record for Grey Goose.

Just within the past month or so, Boston-based Mullen was tapped to handle traditional advertising for Grey Goose.  R/GA in Chicago will, of course, work in tandem with Mullen, but Grey Goose’s digital presence will be very much R/GA-Chicago’s responsibility.

But before we get to Grey Goose’s new Web presence, a word or two about the vodka itself.

Unlike some other well-known vodkas that hail from Russia or Sweden, Grey Goose is a French product. Though it comes from a country perhaps better known for champagne and cognac, Grey Goose is considered special in its category.

Among other things, the French vodka maker grows its own wheat and then harvests and transforms it into the Grey Goose that is shipped around the globe. This allows the company to exert an enormous amount of quality control over every aspect of production.  Hence, “the world’s best-tasting vodka” tagline.

So with this background information very much driving the five-month long process to develop Grey Goose’s new Web site, R/GA set out to make GreyGoose.com a reality.

Site photos taken from pre-existing files

Much of the imagery at the site is quite lush and and finely textured. So it was something of a surprise to us to learn from R/GA co-executive creative director Ken Erke that most of the photography seen at the new site is pre-existing material taken from Grey Goose’s own files.

Clearly the R/GA folk have chosen their photographic imagery carefully to give the site a look and a feel that telegraph the high quality of the brand it represents. 

What Erke and his R/GA collaborators, including co-executive creative director Matt Marcus and technical director Micah Topping, are particularly proud of, in the case of this Grey Goose project, is how easily and fully the Web site automatically modifies itself to fit a mobile phone or tablet if a user accesses GreyGoose.com via one of those devices.

Though for our money, the best experience still comes from exploring the Grey Goose site on a desk top computer, one still gets most of the same effect on those other devices, albeit greatly diminished in size — and therefore — impact.

What makes this souped-up and silky Grey Goose site especially appealing to its creators at R/GA and to Grey Goose executives,  however, is its ability to be quickly updated with all sorts of relevant information.  Indeed the home page that now greets visitors to the site is an artfully-realized image of a bottle of Grey Goose Cherry Noir vodka, the newest line extension introduced this spring.

Videos and photos from Grey Goose events 

A simple click of a directional icon at the end of a couple of lines of ad copy on the page swiftly transports a user deeper into the site — where there is more information about the new Cherry Noir vodka and a range of videos that further plunge one into the real world out there where this so-called world’s best tasting vodka is found.

While all of this sort of information and product introduction has a place in any well-designed Web site, we were told the most popular aspect of GreyGoose.com so far is a section for the posting of photos and videos from more than 600 events Grey Goose sponsors around the world every year.

“Everyone loves a good party,” explained Erke. Indeed, we suppose they do.

And from our examination of a few of the party shots, it’s apparent Grey Goose fans  do like to dress up a bit for these Grey Goose soirees. 

One set of photos, for instance, was shot at a swanky pre-Oscar event in February for noted movie director Martin Scorsese.  And later this year, no doubt , the new Grey Goose site will be filled with photos from a beach polo exhibition the vodka is sponsoring at North Street Beach in Chicago.

Product’s entertainment sponsorships new addition

The very latest additions to the Web site include two sections devoted to Grey Goose’s involvement in the world of entertainment.   Grey Goose just happens to be a sponsor of two television series:  “Rising Icons,” which spotlights up and coming musicians; and “Iconoclasts,” a Sundance Channel series that introduces viewers to “world-renowned visionaries” of all sorts. 

As of a few days ago, the site now includes generous amounts of info and videos related to both projects.

So R/GA in Chicago has packed a lot into this state-of-the-art digital address for Grey Goose. And rest assured, they have made certain the site and its users can be linked to all the various parts of the important social media world, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Yes, it’s all there.  It’s all very sleek. And it’s all about how a brand in a happening, glossy category has to be out there in today’s highly-competitive world of advertising and branding.

Cheers.

Contact Lewis Lazare at: LewisL3@aol.com