Social Media Influencers and Traditional Media: National Wine Marketing Campaigns in Canada

In today’s premium wine market, discovery often begins on social media. Yet when it comes to actual purchase decisions, nearly nine out of ten customers rely on expert validation and peer recommendations. Research shows that higher expert and peer ratings can directly increase consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP), making reviews a powerful driver of both credibility and sales.

Effective communications must therefore combine authoritative expert content with authentic peer-driven stories, ensuring the brand builds both trust and relevance while guiding consumers from awareness to purchase. In practice, this means strategically integrating expert reviews, influencer content, and industry articles across social and traditional channels to amplify reach, reinforce credibility, and convert interest into sales.

Over the past decade, we have built a national network of influential wine critics, journalists, lifestyle editors, and social media influencers across Canada. This network gives us direct access to the voices that shape consumer perception, drive engagement, and influence purchasing decisions in the premium wine market.

With critics and media, this access delivers faster responses, more opportunities for coverage, and trusted placements in respected outlets. With influencers, it enables collaborations with creators chosen specifically for their audience demographics, interests, and engagement patterns, ensuring that the winery’s message reaches the exact consumers most likely to connect with the brand and make a purchase.

Depending on the winery’s objectives, we identify the most relevant critics, journalists, and editors, then distribute samples for review. Editorial independence is central, resulting in credible reviews that build both trade sell-through and direct-to-consumer demand. In parallel, we engage a number of micro- and nano-creators who reflect the winery’s values and whose audiences closely match the winery’s target consumers.

Why micro- and nano-influencers?

• Their content is perceived as genuine peer recommendation, building trust with Gen Z and Millennial consumers.
• They consistently deliver stronger engagement rates, a key driver of conversion.
• They offer cost-efficient reach compared with celebrity or mass-market campaigns.

By targeting micro- and nano-influencers both within and outside the traditional wine world, we can expand our reach beyond the usual audience and build product awareness across new, yet closely related lifestyle channels.

Campaign results

The following averages are drawn from our last five campaigns:

• 42 earned and shared media placements across national and regional Canadian outlets, including 6 backlinks to the winery's website
• Features in leading wine publications and newspapers with a combined audience of 7.5 million monthly unique visitors
• Critic scores of 91–92 points from leading Canadian critics
• Influencer collaborations with a combined social audience of 270,000 followers

The campaign secured extensive coverage in national and regional publications, alongside strong reviews and high point scores from leading critics. By combining traditional press for authoritative validation with influencer collaborations for authentic consumer engagement, this dual approach has consistently strengthened brand equity, driven direct-to-consumer demand, and built momentum for subsequent releases.