Copyright Adweek
Elizabeth Banks was floating down a river in Utah when she first saw Archer Roose Wines fitting into her life. The Pitch Perfect star and Cocaine Bear director cracked open a can of sparkling rosé and sipped with a group of friends under a wide-open blue sky. She’d been pitched on a potential partnership with the burgeoning canned wine brand and decided to take the leap, signing on as a part owner and chief creative officer in 2021. At ADWEEK’s flagship annual event, Brandweek, in Atlanta, Banks joined the brand’s founder and CEO Marian Leitner-Waldman, to recount their shared journey of breaking into a buttoned-up wine industry with a relaxed new concept, and their plans for bringing canned wines to the masses. At the heart of their business proposition: the idea that wine need not be snooty, but can be a casual beverage that fits into everyday moments at movie theaters, baseball games, and in-flight. “My dad worked in a factory [when I was] growing up. My mom worked in a bank. We did not drink fancy wine,” Banks said onstage. “I did not know how to pronounce the word ‘sommelier’ until I was well into adulthood, and I always felt a little intimidated by wine.” In everything from packaging to distribution, Archer Roose is trying to upend archaic ideas about wine culture. Its marketing is a core part of this effort. “What does a wine ad look like? Close your eyes and think about it. It’s an older couple, and they’re walking through a vineyard, and the sun is setting behind them. They’ve got a goblet of red or something, and it’s called some French word, and they’re talking about terroir,” Banks joked. In partnership with Leitner-Waldman, Banks has taken a drastically different approach. In a handful of campaigns launched since Banks’ entry into the company, the comedian and actor plays an exaggerated, out-of-touch version of her A-list self, a foil to Leitner-Walman’s businesslike personality. Banks not only leads Archer Roose Wines’ marketing efforts, but has become a key business leader, working with Leitner-Waldman to ink deals with Princess Cruises, Target, and JetBlue, while drawing inspiration from the spirits industry to better inform the company’s distribution practices. As the brand pushes to get its cans in more venues and in more hands, a few benchmarks will remain top-of-mind. “We don’t just look at what our growth is like year-over-year,” said Leitner-Waldman. “We look at it on a per-account basis. How frequently does that account reorder, and how do those orders grow over time? We incentivize our marketing team on this, and we also incentivize our sales team on this, so that we’re all rowing in the same direction.” The ultimate goal? Make Archer Roose the go-to casual option for wine drinkers everywhere. In Banks’ words: “In every stadium where sports is being played, I want people to be able to walk up to a bar and say, ‘Can I have an Archer Roose?’ like they would order a Budweiser.”
