BACARDI ELEVATES FESTIVE RETAIL WITH WILDE TOAST

Bacardi partnered with creative studio Wilde Toast for a Christmas activation at John Lewis & Partners, Oxford Street. Wilde Toast designed and executed a premium window display and in-store sampling experience, blending festive retail theatre with brand storytelling to capture holiday shoppers’ attention and drive product trial during the peak shopping season.  

The festive season on London’s famed Oxford Street is always a spectacle of light, movement and retail theatre, but this year’s Christmas rush carried a distinctive layer of brand storytelling as Bacardi tapped into experiential design to engage holiday shoppers in real time. At the heart of the campaign sat a collaboration with Wilde Toast, the independent creative studio that was tasked with bringing Bacardi’s world into the iconic John Lewis & Partners store through a custom-built window installation paired with an in-store sampling experience.

For Wilde Toast, the brief brought both creative opportunity and logistical complexity. The team was responsible for the complete design language and physical execution of the window display and retail floor presence, covering visual concept development, production, installation and operational coordination. The result shaped how thousands of passersby encountered Bacardi during one of the busiest commercial periods of the year. Oxford Street’s windows are a competitive and high-investment canvas, and the campaign needed to hold its own amid the surrounding spectacle of competing brands and seasonal themes.

Running through the peak Christmas period, the window display was positioned to do more than simply showcase a bottle. It had to communicate an attitude and invite curiosity, all while aligning with John Lewis & Partners’ aesthetic standards and Bacardi’s global brand sensibilities. Through layered textures, warm lighting, festive cues and premium product framing, Wilde Toast translated Bacardi’s character into a spatial narrative that echoed the mood of the season. These visual invitations formed part one of the experience — the brand’s call to attention on the pavement outside.

Inside the store, the project expanded from visual storytelling to sensory participation. Retail floor sampling stations were structured to introduce customers to select Bacardi products in a context that felt premium and celebratory but not intrusive. In-store shopper behaviour during Christmas is notoriously brisk, with tight attention spans and high decision pressure, and Wilde Toast’s execution balanced efficiency with engagement. Staffed sampling counters allowed for quick education around varieties, serving suggestions and holiday mixability, while also supporting the overall Christmas gifting environment.

The strategic coupling of window theatre with on-the-floor tasting created a funnel effect: the former pulled audiences in while the latter converted interest into trial. For Bacardi, this delivered a rare alignment of brand awareness and product experience within a coveted retail environment. For John Lewis & Partners, the initiative helped amplify the store’s festive identity and offered its holiday shoppers a differentiated moment.

The campaign also highlights a broader shift within beverage marketing toward immersive retail activations that integrate design, storytelling and sampling. As the industry continues to explore how alcohol brands can responsibly and effectively engage consumers in physical spaces, projects that merge creativity with compliance, and aesthetics with measurable outcomes, are becoming increasingly valuable. Wilde Toast’s involvement across both concept and execution meant the brand voice remained consistent throughout, reducing the fragmentation that often appears when agencies and production partners are split across stages.

Reflecting on the project, the Wilde Toast team described the brief as a rewarding collaboration, underscoring the thrill of working with a heritage brand within one of the UK’s most iconic retail settings. Beyond the seasonal sparkle and operational rigour, the activation represented a moment where design was not merely decorative but instrumental, shaping how a global brand encountered the public at scale during a period defined by discovery and purchase intent.

As London’s Christmas lights dim for another year, the Bacardi–Wilde Toast partnership leaves behind a case study in how contemporary brands can enliven traditional retail spaces through thoughtful experiential design. The Oxford Street installation and sampling programme demonstrated that even in an era of digital dominance, physical presence still matters — and when executed with care, it can convert a passing glance into a festive taste and a lasting impression.