Case study
A bar built into a showroom floor.
Aston Martin launched the Vanquish in Mayfair to a room of collectors. We designed the hospitality that sat inside it, from the bar build to the marque printed on every crema.
Aston Martin Mayfair
200 guests
Aston Martin. A bespoke bar built into the Mayfair showroom floor for the Vanquish first look, with the marque printed onto every crema.
The project
By the numbers.
The brief
The car is the headline. The hospitality is not.
Aston Martin came to us through Stratstone, who had seen the work we delivered for McLaren. That is usually how automotive briefs arrive. Nobody experiments with a first look evening.
The Vanquish was being revealed in the Mayfair showroom to high net worth collectors and the marque’s most loyal clients. The brief was consistent and quite specific: every guest in the room should feel personally looked after, and nothing we did should compete with the car.
That second half is the harder instruction. A bar that draws attention to itself at a car launch has failed, however good the drinks are. We were designing something that had to be excellent and recessive at the same time.
The constraint
A showroom is not built to host a bar.
There is no back of house in a showroom. No service kitchen, no cellar, no obvious place to pour from, and no tolerance at all for a wet floor or a stacked crate anywhere a guest might see.
The floor itself is the constraint. It is a display surface. Everything we brought in had to arrive through a public entrance, assemble without marking anything, run off the power already in the room and disappear the same night.
What that ruled out
- Anything that needed plumbing or a dedicated supply
- Ice and waste handled anywhere visible to guests
- A build that could not be carried in and out through the showroom doors
What we designed
A serve that belongs to the car.
We built the menu around the Vanquish rather than around a season or a trend. Colour drawn from the paintwork, a short list that could be made quickly and consistently, and an alcohol free version of every serve, because a launch room is full of people who are driving or working.
The detail guests photographed was the espresso martini. We print onto the crema, so the marque arrives on the surface of the drink and lasts about as long as it takes to notice it. It is a small piece of theatre that costs the room nothing and travels a long way afterwards.
Everything else was deliberately quiet. Glassware, garnish and uniform were chosen to read as part of the showroom, not as a visiting bar.
Launch night.
Delivered
What we built.
A three metre bar, in two sections. Built into the showroom floor and carried in through the public entrance, with ice, waste and preparation held entirely out of sight.
A short, fast menu. Signature serves in the marque’s colours, an alcohol free version of each, and the crest printed onto the espresso martini crema.
Staff briefed on the room. Mixologists who work luxury automotive launches, briefed to serve quickly, speak when spoken to and keep the car the loudest thing in the room.
The result
It carried to a second launch.
Aston Martin brought us back for the Vantage first look in Manchester, to the same standard and the same brief.
In their words
In their words.
On behalf of Aston Martin London, we couldn’t recommend Ali, Paul and Daniel more highly. They were absolutely fantastic, and the cocktails were a huge hit with our customers at our Vanquish Christmas Soiree. The branded Espresso Martinis were the perfect finishing touch. Thank you, team!
In short
What did Drink Differently do for the Aston Martin Vanquish launch?
We designed and delivered the hospitality for the Aston Martin Vanquish first look at the Mayfair showroom, an evening for around 200 collectors and loyal clients. A showroom has no back of house, so we built a bespoke three metre bar in two sections into the showroom floor, carried in through the public entrance, with ice, waste and preparation kept entirely out of sight. The menu was designed around the car: signature serves drawn from the paintwork, an alcohol free version of every drink, and the marque printed onto the crema of the espresso martini. The brief was to make every guest feel personally looked after without ever competing with the car. Aston Martin brought the same team back for the Vantage first look in Manchester. The work came to us through Stratstone, on the strength of a McLaren launch.
By Mr Flavour. Drink Differently is the creative drinks agency of Mr Flavour, rated 5.0 from 86 Google reviews. The work was first published on the Mr Flavour site: Read the Mr Flavour case study.
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