When someone offers you a free wine tasting on the street, you probably do not expect the invitation to involve a bottle valued at around $22,000 on a restaurant wine list. It was precisely on that difference between expectation and what followed that OpenTable built an activation promoting its Experiences Month in Melbourne.
Outside The European restaurant, sommelier and wine educator Jay Bessell looked like an ordinary street promoter. He invited passers-by to come in for a free tasting, without telling them what wine they would be trying, how much it was worth or who the man inviting them actually was.
Of the 42 adult passers-by who were approached, 18 decided to accept the invitation.
Only once they entered the restaurant did the situation change. Bessell returned in the role of sommelier and guided the guests through a blind tasting, before eventually revealing that they had just been drinking Domaine Armand Rousseau Chambertin Grand Cru 2014, a 1.5L magnum valued at approximately $22,000 on a restaurant wine list.
The participants’ surprise was not simply a result of the price. None of them knew in advance that they were taking part in a tasting of a rare wine, so their spontaneous reactions became one of the main elements of the content that OpenTable will distribute across its own channels.
The activation was developed with the brand by independent creative agency 2045, and from the outset the idea was conceived primarily as content that could work as entertainment. Bessell’s transformation from an inconspicuous street host into a sommelier, together with the moment the value of the bottle was revealed, allowed the campaign to show the idea of OpenTable Experiences rather than explain it through a conventional advertising message.
The $22,000 bottle itself is not an experience that users can book through the platform. Instead, it serves as a creative trigger for the campaign’s broader message: that a restaurant can sometimes offer something outside the framework of an ordinary dinner and worth discovering precisely because it does not happen every day.
Throughout August, OpenTable Experiences Month in Melbourne brings together a range of special restaurant formats outside the usual offering, from One Night Only events and chef collaborations to menus created for a single evening, after-hours concepts and specially designed set menus, with offers priced at up to $100 per person. The program is being delivered in partnership with Square.
In the case of the passers-by outside The European, however, no reservation was required to take part in one of the most expensive wine experiences of the day. All they had to do was accept an offer from a stranger on the street.
