Aperol Together We Joy Reframes the Spritz as Italy's Social Language
Aperol's Together We Joy campaign is a 45-second brand film created by JWT Milan, launched in Italy in March 2019, positioning Aperol Spritz as a universal symbol of social connection and shared celebration within the Alcoholic Drinks category.
Aperol belongs to Campari Group, which acquired the brand through its purchase of Aperol's former owner in 2003, according to aperol.com. By 2019, Aperol had become one of the group's most commercially significant properties, and the Together We Joy campaign arrived at a moment of accelerating cultural momentum for the aperitivo ritual in Italy and across European markets. The campaign's central proposition is deceptively simple: the orange-coloured Spritz is not merely a drink but a living social gesture, a moment of collective optimism that transcends language and occasion.
JWT Milan constructed the campaign around a single film asset, directing all creative energy into one tightly produced piece rather than fragmenting the message across formats. The film runs for 45 seconds and was directed by French filmmaking duo Greg and Lio, with production handled by Mercurio Cinematografica. The work was submitted to the industry approximately six years ago, as noted by clapboard.com and adsoftheworld.com, and it represents a deliberate step in Aperol's longer arc of brand-building around joy, friendship, and the aperitivo occasion. In Italy, where the aperitivo culture is both heritage and contemporary social ritual, the campaign speaks directly to an audience that already understands the Spritz as a shared language — Together We Joy simply names that understanding out loud.
Aperol entered 2019 as the fastest-growing major spirit in the Campari Group portfolio. According to The Spirits Business, Aperol sold approximately 5.8 million nine-litre cases in 2019, representing year-over-year growth of 18.8 percent, and the brand achieved FY2019 growth of 20.5 percent while accounting for 18 percent of Campari Group's total net sales, as reported by Shanken News Daily. Campari Group's total FY2019 net sales reached €1.8425 billion, according to camparigroup.com, placing Aperol's implied contribution at approximately €332 million. Against that commercial backdrop, JWT Milan's strategic challenge was not awareness — Aperol Spritz already commanded strong recognition in Italy — but emotional depth and cultural ownership.
The insight driving Together We Joy is that the Spritz had become so familiar in Italy that it risked being taken for granted. Contagious recognised the campaign's positioning strategy, noting that Aperol sought to cement the Spritz as a symbol of an "orange community" — a feeling of belonging activated by sharing a drink, according to contagious.com. This repositioning moved Aperol away from product-centric communication and toward a broader emotional territory: joy as a collective, participatory state rather than a personal indulgence. In Italy's Alcoholic Drinks landscape, where competitors including Martini and Campari's own Campari Aperitivo occupy adjacent aperitivo-occasion territory, owning the emotional register of shared celebration represented a meaningful point of differentiation.
The campaign's release in March 2019 also timed the message ahead of Italy's aperitivo season, aligning the brand's optimistic tone with the anticipation of warmer months and outdoor socialising — a structural media logic that reinforced the creative's warmth and accessibility across the Italian market.
Greg and Lio directed the Together We Joy film for Aperol. The French directing duo, Grégory Ohrel and Lionel Hirlé, brought a warm, kinetic visual sensibility to the work, constructing a 45-second piece that moves through a series of social encounters unified by the presence of the Aperol Spritz and the orange palette that defines the brand's visual identity. Production was executed by Mercurio Cinematografica, with Debora Magnavacca serving as Executive Producer and Guglielmo Fava as Producer, as documented by clapboard.com and brand-news.it.
Chief Creative Officer Sergio Rodriguez led the creative leadership at JWT Milan, with Francesco Epifani as Creative Director, Alessandro Polia as Art Director, and Marco Rocca as Copywriter, according to clapboard.com. The account management team comprised Federica Carpanzano, Barbara Maggioni, and Giorgio Mirani, with Francesca Regali serving as Head of TV, as credited by brand-news.it. The music for the film was composed by Myles Parrish, a detail recorded by pixloop.ai, and it functions as a significant tonal carrier — the score reinforces the sense of spontaneous, unforced celebration that the visuals establish.
The craft decisions throughout the film reflect a deliberate restraint. Rather than building an elaborate narrative, Greg and Lio allowed the recurring motif of the Spritz — its colour, its ritual of pouring, its appearance in different hands and different social settings — to carry the connective logic. Aperol's orange, the bottle silhouette, and the blue and white label function as consistent visual anchors, as noted by aperol.com, ensuring brand recognition operates even when the film prioritises human warmth over product display. Production credits for Together We Joy are comprehensively documented across clapboard.com, adsoftheworld.com, and brand-news.it.
No verified performance data for the Together We Joy campaign is publicly available. No confirmed entries or wins for this work appear on the records of Cannes Lions, the Effies, the One Show, D&AD, the Clios, the Webby Awards, or WARC, as confirmed by clapboard.com and adsoftheworld.com. Published sales figures attributable directly to the campaign have not been released by Aperol or Campari Group.
Structurally, however, the campaign carries several attributes associated with durable brand-building effectiveness. The single-asset discipline — one 45-second film rather than a fragmented multi-format campaign — concentrates creative impact and reduces message dilution. The choice to lead with emotion over product claims aligns with the category dynamics of premium Alcoholic Drinks in Italy, where brand affinity and cultural association drive purchase behaviour more reliably than functional messaging.
The market context also lends the campaign structural credibility. Aperol's broader 2019 performance was exceptional by any measure: growth of 20.5 percent in FY2019 and approximately 5.8 million nine-litre cases sold, according to The Spirits Business and Shanken News Daily, suggest a brand operating with strong commercial and cultural momentum at the precise moment Together We Joy was released in Italy. Whether the campaign contributed to or simply reflected that momentum cannot be determined from public data. Clapboard rates Together We Joy 60 out of 100, a score reflecting competent emotional craft and clear strategic intent, held back by the absence of measurable outcomes and the campaign's reliance on a single asset.
Together We Joy is a 45-second brand film created by JWT Milan for Aperol, launched in Italy in March 2019. The campaign positions Aperol Spritz as a universal symbol of social connection and shared joy, using a single film asset directed by French duo Greg and Lio and produced by Mercurio Cinematografica.
Greg and Lio directed the Together We Joy film for Aperol. The French directing duo — Grégory Ohrel and Lionel Hirlé — worked with production company Mercurio Cinematografica. The creative team at JWT Milan was led by Chief Creative Officer Sergio Rodriguez, with Francesco Epifani as Creative Director, according to clapboard.com.
JWT Milan positioned Aperol Spritz as the emotional centre of Italy's aperitivo culture. Rather than product-led messaging, the strategy claimed the territory of collective joy and belonging — framing the Spritz as a shared social gesture. Contagious noted this approach as building an "orange community" around the brand's identity.
Aperol achieved FY2019 growth of 20.5 percent and sold approximately 5.8 million nine-litre cases that year, according to The Spirits Business and Shanken News Daily. The brand accounted for 18 percent of Campari Group's total net sales, making it one of the group's most commercially significant properties at the time of the campaign's Italy launch.
No verified awards for Together We Joy appear on record. Clapboard.com and adsoftheworld.com confirm no entries or wins at Cannes Lions, D&AD, the One Show, the Effies, the Clios, the Webby Awards, or WARC. Clapboard assigns the campaign a score of 60 out of 100, reflecting solid craft without documented industry recognition.
Clapboard scores Together We Joy 60 out of 100. The rating reflects competent emotional storytelling and a clear strategic proposition around Aperol Spritz as Italy's social symbol. The score is tempered by the campaign's single-asset scope and the absence of any publicly verified performance metrics or confirmed awards recognition from major industry bodies.
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