Electric Sky Wine
A revolutionary luxury wine for the millennial connoisseur, Electric Sky Wine is redefining the association between wine and music. In partnership with Interscope Records, this new premium wine is offered in single serve, stackable portions. A natural fit for music festival goers and a younger generation of wine consumers, the partnership has distinguished Electric Sky from any other brand. Daniel Sena, Head of Strategic Marketing at Interscope Records has been a defining presence in the direction of the partnership. With the core belief that music is ingrained in Electric Sky’s DNA and that there is a deep sense of opportunity to create a premium wine for on-the- go consumers, his direction has played a role in the overwhelming success of both companies.
GC: Music, Milennials, and Wine. You have hit the trifecta. Tell us more about Electric Sky Wine (ESW).
DS: Electric Sky was really born out of an idea we at Interscope had, which was that wine has always been inefficient to consume at concerts and music festivals. Drinking wine and ordering it was a pain. The bartenders would eyeball a pour into an oversized plastic beer cup. You’d spill on yourself and others as you tried to navigate through the crowd. It was impossible to carry more than one cup. So really we just wanted to create a solution that would allow fans of wine a way to enjoy it at shows and festivals in a turnkey manner - hence the stackable, single serve packaging. Early on when we started selling it at festivals, it would sell out everywhere. People would take the empty cups and stack them 6 or 8 feet tall and wave them around like towers. People started tweeting at us, asking where they could find the product. Festivals started calling us and requesting it and placing larger and larger orders. And retailers started reaching out asking if they could stock it. What had started as a modest goal of ours to address a hole in the market ended up taking on a life of its own.
GC: Music and Wine, there must be a juicy behind the scenes story?
DS: So many of our artists have discovered it around the Interscope office and become fans of if. They request shipments to their homes, for when they're on tour, etc. It's a fun brand, we're not too pretentious or uptight, and I think the artists like that. We've had artists want to create custom collaborations with the wine, others have had it at their weddings, you name it.
GC: Is ESW only available at cool parties and music festivals?
DS: We're really trying to be strategic about not scaling too quickly. So we've been taking a market by market approach, where we can ensure that we're super-serving those communities where we're being sold. New York, Chicago, Texas, Los Angeles, and Michigan. In addition to retail and festivals, we try to support the arts communities whenever we can. So if there are fun gallery openings or documentary premieres or music showcases, we try to support those communities with our wine whenever possible.
GC: What about film festivals? ESW will be a hit as we know it.
DS: The film and fashion communities have also been really supportive of the wine. Whether it's a film screening or an underground fashion show, it seems like the art communities have really embraced it just as much as the music scene has.
GC: If you were to pair a genre of music to each varietal, what would it be and why?
DS: What's amazing is that the wine has proven successful with fans of all genres of music. We've been at Bonnaroo, EDC, Life is Beautiful, Mamby on the Beach, Afropunk, Neon Desert, Gov Ball - you name it. It's just really gratifying to see all music fans enjoy it.