Hennessy’s LeBron James ad sparked controversy—and record engagement

Last month, LeBron James posted a video of himself taking a seat across from an interviewer with the caption, “the decision of all decisions.”

It was a callback to 2010, when the current Los Angeles Lakers star told the world he was joining the Miami Heat, and the post sparked widespread speculation that James could be retiring or making another career move. The following day, LeBron made the reveal: “I’m going to be taking my talents to Hennessy VSOP,” he said in an ad promoting a limited-edition cognac.

Naturally, some fans were less than pleased by the bait and switch. But for Hennessy, which had already seen strong visibility from the partnership it started with James last year, the campaign boosted engagement rates on its socials and other owned channels to an “all-time high,” according to CMO Vincent Montalescot.

“Sometimes, greatness is divisive,” Amar Babbar, comms planning director for Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, the agency behind the campaign, told Marketing Brew. “It’s about creating the conversation.”

At least they’re talking

From the jump, the “The Second Decision” campaign was meant to drive conversation around the brand and the new Hennessy VSOP, a product created in collaboration with James, Montalescot said in an email.

“Our focus was on deepening Hennessy’s cultural relevance,” he told us. “Success is measured on our ability to resonate through the massive pool of Lebron James’ fans.”

Montalescot’s team tracked reach and engagement across paid, owned, and earned channels, and media coverage in sports and lifestyle publications, as well as brand metrics including sentiment, perception, and consideration. He didn’t share specific numerical results from the campaign, but said it resulted in record engagement for the brand.

The sentiment wasn’t all positive. After resale ticket prices skyrocketed amid speculation that James was about to play his last game, one fan sued James in the hopes of recouping the hundreds of dollars he spent. “Early reactions were highly charged,” Montalescot acknowledged, but that wasn’t necessarily a surprise for brand and agency execs.

“We knew this was going to happen,” Zeynep Orbay, creative director at Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, said.

Hennessy isn’t the first brand to spark anger, nor is it the first to hint at the eventual end of James’s playing career. Over the summer, Amazon ran an ad for Prime Day that opened with James at a press conference fielding a question about retirement. “We promise it’s not us again,” Amazon’s account commented on James’s Instagram post teasing the campaign.

Break with tradition

The creative team at Wieden+Kennedy wanted to “make a splash within basketball culture” during the offseason, which led to the idea of leaning into trade rumors, Babbar said.

“When we talk about trade rumors and we talk about LeBron, there was only really one place to start,” Babbar said. “How do we take that iconic moment and use that, subvert it, [and] allow LeBron and Hennessey to play with that moment to revitalize it for a new generation?”

The target audience for Hennessy is younger consumers of legal drinking age, according to Babbar, and to stand out among that crowd, the Wieden+Kennedy team aimed to break the traditional celebrity-backed alcohol ad mold featuring stars showing off bottles, Orbay said. Luckily for the creatives, James was “very open” to the cheeky tone and “one of the best actors we have seen,” she said.

A month after it went live, the campaign is still seeing “unprecedented traction,” which Montalescot said he hopes will continue into the holidays.

“Cultural risk often leads to cultural reward,” he said.