Make me a viral video.

The five words that make any marketing manager's heart sink.

Yet despite the difficulty and unpredictability of viral marketing, there remains a particularly delicious sense of success (and of course off the scale ROI) when an idea goes viral for all the right reasons.

Enter London-based wine start-up, Nice, armed with a good idea and the guts to get it out there quickly.

With London hosting more Taylor Swift Eras Tour shows than any other city in the world, bringing 700,000 people across eight dates at Wembley Stadium, fans expected to boost the London economy by £300 million. The tour is a marketing moment waiting to happen and it is no surprise that Nice wanted to jump on the opportunity to pull off a viral stunt. Yet that desire and the creativity to make it happen are often acres apart.

The brand turned to the tried-and-tested method of using a lookalike to drive talkability. (Hat tip to budget supermarket brand Aldi who successfully turned heads with their fake Kate Moss.)

With Eras excitement building across social media, the Nice marketing team took the spark of an idea and capitalised on the moment. They planted a lookalike of NFL star and Taylor Swift’s much-hyped new partner Travis Kelce in a Wembley Sainsbury’s. They pictured him on TikTok buying Nice canned Sauvignon Blanc. A video has been viewed by over 1.1m people on TikTok. A moment of cultural connection that even reached the airwaves of Capital FM’s Saturday chat show.

Nice Head of Marketing, Emily Churchill, explained: “We knew that the only conversation happening on TikTok this weekend would surround Taylor Swift and we wanted to see if we could hijack just a small part of that conversation. So, we planted a Travis Kelce lookalike, also known as our Wine Director, Elliot, and his bodyguard (our National Account Manager, Callum) in a Sainsbury's Local near Wembley buying cans of Nice and posted it on our Marketing Manager, Amy’s, Tik Tok.”

She continues: “The result? Over 1.1 million views, hundreds of direct messages and messages from friends, followers and Taylor fans telling us Travis Kelce drinks Nice wine, as well as a mention on Capital FM. All for the cost of two cans of Nice Sauvignon Blanc. If that isn't Big Budget Energy, I don't know what is.”

Raise a glass (or can of reasonably priced wine) to Nice’s marketing team. Driving cultural currency in marketing can still be driven by the clarity of the right idea at the right time.

Watch the video on TikTok. Watch the NICE follow up.