Case study: Invitations distributed via SMS

Texting personalised invitations to people to attend national events such as the Sommeliers Wine Awards was a first for Square Meal and the campaign advice and support we received from Mediaburst ensured a great result

Rachel Curran, Marketing Manager for Imbibe Magazine

Scrap the paper! That’s the environmentally-conscious policy adopted by Square Meals’ Imbibe Magazine earlier this year when organising its unique Sommelier Awards 2008 event. It also enabled the magazine to build a closer, more immediate relationship with on-trade establishments.

Instead of posting invitations to the event, Imbibe selected Mediaburst’s award-winning text services to invite the nation’s sommeliers to taste over 200 new wines. The wines now figure prominently on the wine lists of many of Britain’s restaurants, bars and gastropubs.

The invitation was part of a unique wine tasting event in London. Called the Sommelier Wine Awards 2008, it is Britain’s only on-trade wine competition. Criteria for entering wines were twofold – they must be available to the UK’s wine trade and must not be sold in mainstream off-trade outlets like supermarkets.

Some of Britain’s finest palates were recruited earlier in the year to judge the quality of wines entered on the basis of their food-friendliness, versatility, character and value for money.

After the first round of tasting, 300 wines entered for the event were chosen to become the Sommelier’s shortlist. They were then re-tasted and the judges picked the best 100 to make up a Gold List.

Categories include a suggested selection for House Wines, Sparkling Wine and Champagne, Rose, Stickies (Dessert Wines), and selected red and white wines from wine growing countries such as Australia, France, Spain and Italy.

“Texting personalised invitations to people to attend national events such as the Sommelier Wine Awards was a first for Square Meal and the campaign advice and support we received from Mediaburst ensured a great result. We expect to use this kind of communication more in the future as guests at the event found the SMS reminder and e-ticket really useful,” says Rachel Curran, Marketing Manager for Imbibe Magazine.