Modernizing a Category Icon Without Losing Its Core Equity

Every great marketing campaign begins with a great brand platform. And every great brand platform begins with identifying a real consumer need or tension that your brand can authentically address in a way that is ownable, culturally relevant, and differentiated within the Category, and is defined in the emotional territory where your cultural, consumer, category, and company (brand) insights converge. Marketing campaigns anchored in this type of platform, then extended and executed cohesively and consistently through the line, deliver near-term results while building equity needed for long-term success.

This is the philosophy that guided every decision I made developing and launching ‘Wine Your Way!’ - the most successful brand platform and integrated marketing campaign in the 40-year history of Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi.  

Woodbridge had a stronghold with Baby Boomer wine buyers (70% of Sales) but needed to drive new customer adoption to grow market share and achieve our brand vision of becoming a Top 3 US Wine brand... and, with category consumption softening across age cohorts, in order to hold onto that position long-term, Woodbridge would need to broaden its shoulders into new, high-growth market segments where we did not currently have equity, permission to play, or a right to win. 

Those segments (ex: sparkling and fruit-flavored wines) were being driven by Gen Z & Millennial buyers.

Gen X seemed the obvious growth target choice: a large segment with high spending power somewhat "ignored" by marketers and generationally adjacent to Boomers providing higher likelihood of shared experiences and values (meaning marketing can more easily resonate with both audiences, important to authenticity and efficiency)... but since category consumption was softening across age cohorts, in order to not only gain but hold onto a leadership position long term Woodbridge would need to broaden its shoulders into new, high-growth market segments where we did not currently have equity, permission to play, or a right to win. Those segments (ex: sparkling and fruit-flavored wines) were being driven by Gen Z & Millennial buyers.

Unlock penetration with Zillennials without alienating our core Baby Boomer buyers. 

How do you effectively engage and drive relevance with two generations who significantly diverge in their core values, priorities and ways of looking at the world, and have opposite current impressions of the brand - Boomers feeling connected, but Zillennials not?

Albert Einstein famously said, "If I had an hour to solve a problem, I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions." The lynchpin of our success with this campaign was dedicating time at the outset to understand the consumer target and pinpoint why previous efforts to engage them had not worked.

I began by analyzing brand health funnel metrics by age group against our competitive set and Category benchmarks, uncovering that Woodbridge had relatively healthy Awareness and Consideration with Zillennials but the % of Brand-Aware Zillennials converting from Consideration to Intent was 4x lower than our Boomer conversion rate (and 4x lower than our competitors’ conversion rates with Zillennials). To understand what was causing Zillennials to drop out while considering us and fix the mid-to-low funnel blockage, I turned to brand health tracking against the 9 key Consideration-drivers for wine. Interestingly, Zillennials were consistent with Boomers in perceiving Woodbridge as offering quality, having authentic history, and being “a brand I want to be seen drinking,” but they diverged significantly on all other personal & social relevance measures. Zillennials had significantly lower brand affinity, a much less positive impression of Woodbridge, and were not nearly as willing to recommend Woodbridge to others or feel good sharing it with others. 

These insights collectively indicated that a lack of emotional connection and relatability was keeping Zillennials from choosing Woodbridge. The new campaign needed to humanize the brand for Zillennials, making it feel welcoming and showcasing its quality without being intimidating - and had to do so without negatively impacting our core Boomer buyers’ current positive perceptions of the brand. 

Through qual and quant research my team and I corroborated that Gen Z, Millennial and Baby Boomer generations, despite the many ways in which they differ, all highly value independence, self-expression and the freedom to challenge or convention. Knowing we could appeal to both audiences through their desire for independence, self-expression and freedom, we set out to understand their orientation to the Category and identify needs to be met or tensions to be solved.

Probing into the overlap (or lack thereof) between these core values and the wine category, we unlocked our key dissonance: Zillennials sought independence, self-expression and freedom but perceived wine as commanding the opposite. Zillennials perceived wine as a category that expected them to adhere to convention due to the widespread belief that there are “rules” for how to drink, taste, serve and talk about wine that one must follow. While Boomer buyers had realized long ago that they didn’t need to follow “wine rules,” Zillennials had not yet developed the same confidence; as a result, wine felt intimidating, unwelcoming and at odds with their values. 

Zillennials wanted permission to do what Boomers had been doing for years - we just needed to connect the dots.

The convergence of these consumer and category insights delivered our new major unlock: Zillennials struggled to connect with heritage-forward brands like Woodbridge because they associated them with the traditional aspects of wine and, therefore, wine’s “rules” and conventions. In other words, how Woodbridge had been showing up directly conflicted with Zillennials’ unmet need for permission to drink wine casually and without judgement.

Woodbridge’s heritage story was highly valued by our Boomer base and a powerful differentiator at our price point where the market was essentially commoditized. So rather than walk away from it, we reframed how we leveraged the Robert Mondavi name (and the credibility it endowed) to create a more inclusive, welcoming, modern image for Woodbridge that was relatable and appealed to Zillennials and Boomers’ shared values of choice and individuality. ‘Wine Your Way!’ leveraged the Mondavi endorsement to credibly “free” buyers from the so-called rules of wine and encourage them to enjoy wine their way - whenever, wherever and however they want. In this way we made the campaign ownable to Woodbridge, ensured our perceived quality and authentic history were not compromised and kept our heritage story present for Boomers in a way that also added value for Zillennials.

By freeing drinkers from “the rules of wine” Woodbridge’s Wine Your Way! campaign addressed a very real, deep tension for Zillennials while celebrating what Boomers had been doing all along - making both groups of buyers feel seen, heard and understood by the brand. 

 It did two things simultaneously:

• It gave younger consumers permission to engage with wine on their own terms - casually, informally, without judgment
• It validated older consumers’ existing behavior, reinforcing what they had already been doing for years

This dual relevance was critical. It allowed the brand to expand without alienating its core. 

We extended Wine Your Way! campaign through the line an integrated marketing campaign inclusive of paid media (digital, social, SEM/SEO, Linear & DTV, OOH), PR (experiential, press seeding & trade engagement, earned media, influencer marketing), sponsorship activations, and breakthrough seasonal retail programs that worked together to reinforce a fresh, culturally connected brand story at all consumer touchpoints. Not only did the campaign drive lifts across all funnel metrics and key Consideration-driving KPIs with Zillennials, it also increased lower funnel conversion with Boomer+ buyers and garnered strong support from retailers who recognized its value (ie: increased basket ring) in expanding wine’s relevance in non-traditional occasions. 

By taking a human-first, culturally relevant, multi-channel approach, Wine Your Way! successfully delivered immediate results while positioning Woodbridge for long-term growth. 

Woodbridge was the only top wine brand growing Gen Z penetration. Cultural relevance rocketed +21%. Despite our mid-funnel focus, we drove full funnel lift with our A21-49 target. Conversion improved not only among our target (+31%) but also with our core (+9%).

We were establishing strong social, personal, and cultural relevance with our new target without alienating our core buyers, demonstrated by lift across every key consideration driving KPIs including: Brand Love, High-Quality, For Someone Like Me, Positive Impression, Would Recommend to Others, Brand I Want to Be Seen Drinking, Brand I Feel Good Sharing with Others, Word of Mouth Exposure, and Authenticity.

As expected, once these new buyers came into the brand and tried the wines, they stayed. Our NPS score with Zillennials climbed +11%  and was the highest among key competitors Barefoot, Yellow Tail & Sutter Home.

 With brand relevance restored and momentum building, the next constraint became clear: Woodbridge’s portfolio limited its ability to participate in growth.
The core varietal wine business was mature and declining, while adjacent segments - sparkling, fruit-forward, and lower-alcohol formats - were growing, driven disproportionately by younger consumers. Woodbridge had little presence or permission in those spaces.
Rather than extend indiscriminately, I approached innovation as a targeted expansion of the brand’s right to win. I identified white space opportunities in adjacent segments, developed and validated concepts through consumer and sensory research, and built a pipeline designed to deliver incrementality rather than cannibalization.
Three platforms emerged as clear opportunities:

• Sparkling Infusions: fruit-flavored sparkling wines positioned to attract consumers seeking more expressive, approachable options within sparkling
• Fruitful Blends: lightly carbonated, fruit-infused wines designed to compete directly with fast-growing fruit varietal offerings
• Sessions: lower alcohol, lower calorie variants of core SKUs aligned with evolving moderation trends

Each was designed not simply as a product, but as a strategic extension of the brand into growth-driving occasions and segments. Timing was aligned with national account reset cycles to maximize distribution impact and retail support.

This portfolio expansion allowed Woodbridge to broaden its reach, capture new demand, and participate in areas of category growth without diluting its core identity. 

 As the brand and portfolio evolved, the physical product needed to keep pace.

Woodbridge’s packaging had not kept up with modern shelf expectations or evolving consumer perceptions. While it retained strong recognition, it under-indexed on attributes like modernity and differentiation - factors that increasingly influenced purchase decisions, particularly among younger buyers.

I led an enterprise-scale packaging renovation across 75+ SKUs, spanning domestic and international markets. The objective was not reinvention, but elevation: modernize the brand’s visual system while preserving its core equities of quality, trust, and recognition.

The redesign delivered against both.

Purchase intent increased between 10% and 25% across core and growth audiences. The new packaging outperformed both prior designs and competitive sets on key decision-driving attributes, including taste perception, value, modernity, and trustworthiness. At the same time, shelf recognition and noticeability were maintained - ensuring continuity for existing buyers.

The packaging also became a functional growth lever. By integrating QR codes, digital pathways, and clear calls to action, it connected physical product to digital engagement, driving a 300% increase in website traffic within two months of rollout.

This was not a cosmetic update. It was a reinforcement of the brand’s repositioning at the point of purchase.

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