Pol Roger Breaks Convention with New ‘Proudly Understated’ Campaign

​Champagne Pol Roger (led in the UK by Pol Roger Portfolio) and the Orange Panther Collective (OPC) has released their first work together today as they launch their ‘Proudly Understated’ advertising campaign.

Back in February, James Simpson (MD) and Megan Loveridge (head of marketing) worked with the intermediary Tuffon Hall to select a new strategic and creative partner for the next 3 years. After a rigorous process that led to a shortlist of 4 agencies, OPC triumphed against VCCP, Unchartered and Dog, Cat & Mouse, to become Champagne Pol Roger UKs creative agency.

Since then the two businesses have been working tirelessly together to shape what Nigel Roberts, creative partner at OPC calls ‘A radically different strategy and creative campaign for a premium champagne house’. Nigel goes on to say that ‘Champagne is synonymous with success, obviously, but Pol Roger has never wanted to be a showing-off brand. They only care about the exceptional quality of the liquid. They create their champagnes to be enjoyed, not paraded. So the challenge was to find the right balance between pride in the excellence of their champagnes and the quiet humility that the family has always maintained. There’s an amazing honesty in everything they do. So we needed the campaign to look and feel honest. To avoid the typical conceits and visual tropes that so many other brands all revert to. To connect with an audience that will choose Pol Roger for all the right reasons’.

The work was developed with the renowned Parisian still life photographer Philippe Lacombe, who shared his passion for the project, “The creative work offers a space of serenity, a luxury of emptiness that proves more expressive than the clutter of most advertising. For me, it was a production in perfect harmony with my work. I'm very proud to have taken part in this campaign as I have a lot of respect for the Pol Roger brand and their fabulous champagnes, and I am truly impressed by their support for such a unique and confident approach”.

Megan Loveridge, head of marketing, commented on the complexity of the brief, “Our challenge to OPC was to help us futureproof the brand and our sales pipeline, rather than any quick fix. We wanted to take a proactive approach - evolving our positioning to resonate with a new generation of consumers, without alienating our current consumers. It was important that we embraced the current trends within this audience: premiumisation, minimalism, discernment and independence, all of which we believe are reflected strongly in this work.”

James Simpson, MD added, “Not sure I ever imagined we would develop a campaign that only shows a hint of our actual product. But when working on the project OPC highlighted the parity amongst all champagne brand advertising which is essentially a big hero shot of the bottle and a relatively indistinguishable line of copy. So to run this campaign felt like a confident step change”.

​Simon Hewitt, founder and client partner at OPC commented on the strength of the relationship that is forming between Champagne Pol Roger & OPC, “We are only just over 4 months into a 3 year relationship with James, Meg and the team but the mutual respect, aligned vision and confidence is evident in this work. It’s a great start.”

The work breaks on Thursday 10th in the Spectator and will be followed later in the year by a partnership with Conde Nast, managed by the Pol Roger Portfolio’s media partner December19, and some sponsorship activity around key sports events.