Champagne in Popular Culture - Marketing and Placement

Marketing and Placement

In 1866 the famous entertainer and star of his day, George Leybourne, began making celebrity endorsements for Champagne. The Champagne maker Moët commissioned him to write and perform songs extolling the virtues of Champagne, especially as a reflection of taste, affluence and the good life. He also agreed to drink nothing but Champagne in public. Leybourne was seen as highly sophisticated and his image and efforts did much to establish Champagne as an important social status symbol. It was a marketing triumph, the results of which endure to this day. The marketing success of Champagne during the "Belle époque" in export markets was remarked upon in 1882 by the British author and oenophile Henry Vizetelly on how Champagne had become mandatory at all launchings, inaugurations and celebrations.