Penhaligon’s Racquets

“Welcome to the Penhaligon’s Club House, do grab a citrus cocktail from the bar. We’ve just the one for you.”

Penhaligon’s is a quintessentially British brand that prides itself on aromatic perfumes, refreshing aftershaves and theatrical gift sets for both men and women.

A real heritage brand formed in 1870, Penhaligon’s utilises a distinctive style and a whimsically British tone of voice to stand out in the luxury market.

After our latest successful partnership on the Enchanted Garden campaign, Penhaligon’s came to us to help launch their latest fragrance, Racquets – inspired by the delights of sipping a summery gin & tonic whilst watching the tennis at Wimbledon.

The campaign required the same iconic vintage style synonymous with the brand, specifically drawing inspiration from classic Victorian imagery. We were also asked for tennis to feature heavily as a theme, to capture the sporty and summery feel we might associate with a day at the country club.

“Bright, bouncing lemon doubles up with strapping leather in this sparkling eau de parfum. Do try and be a good sport.”

We always wanted to keep the new campaign framed within the confines of the tennis world, but have fun with it, so we created our own court palette using lemon yellow and salmon pink instead of typical grass green.

We also took some classic Victorian images and put our own take on them by tracing over the lines and adding the tennis accessories to build a strong visual language for the campaign.

Lemon was an essential note in the new Racquets fragrance, so of course we created a visual link between a lemon and a tennis ball. We included these lemon visuals throughout the campaign, often being served with a tennis player hitting them instead of the ball.

We delivered the full campaign from end-to-end, defining the art direction and creative, delivering the photoshoot, social media assets, a hero video campaign and a ‘rules & etiquette’ video. To go alongside this, we even created a Racquet game based on the arcade classic, Pong.

The end result was a seamless connection between the summery sport and a refreshing cocktail – just like the notes of the perfume. We think we captured the essence of the Racquets fragrance really well in this campaign, and we can’t wait to see what Penhaligon’s does next.