Vicky Elmer (Beercock)

The difference between a sponsored event and a cultural moment is felt immediately by everyone in the room. One feels like an obligation. The other feels like somewhere worth being. The entire BACARDÍ x Soho House programme was built around that distinction.

The strategy was not complicated: create a series of moments where great music, credible talent and exceptional cocktails came together in environments that felt genuinely exclusive - not because they were branded that way, but because they actually were. The target audience was the cultural engine room - people working across music, media, fashion and the creative industries. People whose instincts for authenticity are professionally calibrated.

Shoreditch House was chosen deliberately. The membership skew, the music credentials, the physical environment - all of it aligned to BACARDÍ's positioning without requiring explanation.

Programme Design

The partnership was structured as a sequence of five high-impact events, supported by additional tasting and cocktail education moments throughout the year. Cultural credibility and content scalability were treated as equally important design criteria from the outset.

The five core events:

Shoreditch House Pool Party with Grandmaster Flash - a summer moment anchored in music heritage and genuine exclusivity.

The BRIT Awards afterparties x 2, co-hosted with Universal Music - BACARDÍ as credible cultural host at one of the most significant nights in the UK music calendar.

The Great Escape Festival launch party in Brighton, aligned to Soho House's expansion into the city.

Shoreditch House Tensnake party, built around the Untameable artist positioning.

Additional activations included rum tastings, cocktail masterclasses and first-refusal rights on selected high-profile artist afterparties across Soho House venues throughout the year.

The BRITs - Beyond the Room

The BRIT Awards afterparties were the signature moments of the programme. Co-hosted with Universal Music, the events combined premium production, high-profile guests and a bartender-led cocktail experience that put craft at the centre rather than the brand.

The footprint extended beyond the venue. Artist and partner activations were built around the BRITs ecosystem - including curated transport experiences engineered to create story-worthy, shareable moments without relying on paid sponsorship or additional budget. The mechanic was relationship leverage and partner value exchange: getting the right people into the right environment through trust rather than spend.

That approach - using relationship capital where other brands would use media budget - was consistent across the entire programme.

Strategic Impact

The partnership shifted BACARDÍ from visible sponsor to credible cultural host. Soho House provided the environment. The music and talent provided the credibility. The cocktail craft provided the product truth. Together they created a setting where advocacy was generated naturally - by people who were genuinely there because they wanted to be, not because they had been paid to attend.

The model that emerged - exclusive settings, credible talent, bartender craft, content that travels beyond the moment - became a repeatable framework for culture-led brand partnerships. The most effective brand presence in that room was the one you almost didn't notice.

PARTY OVERVIEW

Hosted by BACARDÍ and Soho House, Universal Music threw the best party of the evening, during one of the most important nights in the British music industry calendar.

Jazzie B warmed the crowd up, before Katy Perry, Ellie Goulding and Lorde took to the decks for a surprise DJ set which sent the dance floor wild. The girls played some of the year’s biggest hits, including a couple of their own tracks, which saw Jessie J, Daisy Lowe, Emeli Sande, Rizzle Kicks, Dougie Poynter and HAIM joining guests to party into the small hours.

Award winners, Ellie Goulding and Lorde, received rapturous applause having just won Best UK Female and Lorde for Best International Female respectively. Bastille were also in the crowd celebrating their best breakthrough act Brit.

Held at a Soho House pop up venue under Waterloo Bridge, the building made for an imposing entrance, as VIP artists and guests arrived in style in chauffeured Audi Cars from the awards. The building was decorated in signature Soho House style with low-level lighting and vintage furniture, split across two levels for guests to enjoy the party.

Guests were served bespoke BACARDÍ cocktails made by some of London’s best bartenders. These included The Daiquiri, Perfect Storm, Old Cuban and Puerto Rican Punch. Canapés provided by Soho House were also served and included mini Dirty Burgers, homemade chicken & mushroom pies, mac & cheese alongside a sweet selection including chocolate brownies, lemon tart and doughnuts.

BACARDI startenders for the event:

• Tom Walker- The Savoy

• Steven Tarr- Milk and Honey

• Terry Cashman- Callooh Callay

• Teddy Joseph- White Lion

• Ali Reynolds- Hawksmoor

• Matt Robertson- Hawksmoor

• Abdul Kweli- Gordon Ramsey

Additional activity around the Brits not connected to Soho House included chartering three boats down the Thames, one with Coda Music, and 2 with Universal Music, to take all the Coda Music artists and all the artists signed to Universal, from the Brits Awards ceremony to the Brit Awards after parties. BACARDÍ cocktails were created by London’s finest mixologists, and world class event production took over all three boats making them THE party boats of the awards season and cementing BACARDÍ as a brand that throws world class parties with credible artists in music. This was amplified by the volume of artists voluntarily sharing branded content from the boats (including bespoke cocktails created around the artists’ personalities which they particularly enjoyed). These collaborations were negotiated at cost without a sponsorship fee paid to either Coda or Universal Music, by leveraging key relationships.

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