Segura Viudas and Lion Babe Rewrite Auld Lang Syne for the Holidays
Segura Viudas launched "Open Up To Join The Chorus" in December 2018, a United States holiday film campaign created by Republica Havas that featured Lion Babe performing a reimagined version of "Auld Lang Syne" alongside ten musicians, dancers, and performers in support of Women in Music.
The campaign anchors itself to the brand's established "Open Up" creative platform, which Segura Viudas introduced in September 2016 per Clapboard.com, encouraging consumers to leave their comfort zones and embrace new experiences. For the 2018 holiday season, that philosophy found its most musically ambitious expression yet. Republica Havas, identified as Segura Viudas' agency of record according to republicahavas.com, announced the campaign on November 19, 2018, ahead of its December publication across the United States market. The single film asset at the heart of the effort invited audiences not merely to watch a performance but to participate in it — to open up and join the chorus, both literally and figuratively. The call to action extended beyond the screen through a social-impact dimension: the campaign carried a benefit component tied to Women in Music, the nonprofit organisation dedicated to advancing gender equity in the music industry, as documented by Clapboard.com. Segura Viudas is a Spanish cava producer whose modern commercial history dates to the 1950s, with its first cava marketed in 1969, per Clapboard.com. The brand is imported into the United States by Freixenet USA of Sonoma, California, and now sits within the Henkell Freixenet portfolio, as noted by henkell-freixenet.com. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 64 out of 100, reflecting competent cultural alignment and a clearly differentiated social purpose, tempered by limited documented reach metrics in the public record.
Segura Viudas operates in a sparkling wine category that was expanding rapidly in 2018. Global sparkling wine consumption reached approximately 19 million hectolitres that year, representing eight percent of total global wine consumption compared with five percent in 2002, according to the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV). Sparkling wine export value reached approximately €6.2 billion in 2018, accounting for roughly twenty percent of total wine export value, also per OIV data. Within this growing global context, the United States represented one of the most strategically significant destination markets for cava producers seeking premiumisation.
The competitive landscape in the United States sparkling wine category is anchored by two dominant forces: Moët Hennessy's Moët and Chandon, which commands premium Champagne positioning, and rival cava producer Freixenet, historically the sibling brand within the same ownership structure. For Segura Viudas, differentiation required a platform beyond price and provenance. The "Open Up" strategy, carried through to the 2018 campaign by Republica Havas, leverages cultural resonance rather than product specification, targeting a younger, experience-driven United States consumer who engages with music and social purpose alongside food and drink choices. The decision to partner with Lion Babe — the New York-based duo of Jillian Hervey and Lucas Goodman, known for genre-crossing soul, funk, and electronic influences — signals a deliberate push toward a more diverse and culturally fluent audience in the United States than traditional sparkling wine advertising typically reaches. Cava international shipments exceeded a significant threshold in 2018, according to Alimarket, underscoring the commercial ambition behind campaigns of this kind in export markets including the United States.
Lion Babe composed and performed a new version of "Auld Lang Syne" for the campaign's central film, transforming one of the most recognisable seasonal songs in the United States into a vehicle that reflects the duo's signature genre-blending aesthetic. The performance brought together ten additional artists — musicians, dancers, and performers — creating an ensemble film that functions as both brand content and a standalone musical moment. Jillian Hervey of Lion Babe spoke to the nature of the collaboration, with her quote documented by Clapboard.com, framing the partnership as one rooted in shared values around openness, community, and artistic inclusion.
The creative execution connects the "Open Up" platform to a specific visual and sonic world: one where celebration is participatory rather than aspirational, and where the product occupies a social context rather than a prestige pedestal. This is a meaningful creative distinction in the Food and Drink category, where sparkling wine advertising has historically leaned on imagery of exclusivity. Republica Havas inverts that convention by foregrounding artists and community over bottles and chandeliers. The Women in Music tie-in is not treated as an afterthought but is woven into the campaign's structural logic, giving the performance a purpose that extends the brand's cultural credibility in the United States market. On the production and creative side, the campaign earned formal industry recognition. Melissa Smock received 2019 Gold honours in both the Telly Awards and the American Advertising Awards for "Open Up and Join the Chorus," as documented by Clapboard.com and corroborated via adsoftheworld.com. Milton Lebron also earned multiple 2019 honours for work on the campaign, per Clapboard.com, affirming the craft quality behind the film's production.
No independently verified consumer reach or sales performance data for the "Open Up To Join The Chorus" campaign is publicly available in the documented record. What the public record does confirm is a pattern of formal industry validation that speaks to the campaign's creative and strategic effectiveness. Melissa Smock earned 2019 Gold honours in the Telly Awards and the American Advertising Awards specifically for this campaign, as documented by Clapboard.com and corroborated by adsoftheworld.com. Milton Lebron earned multiple 2019 honours for the campaign as well, per Clapboard.com. These recognitions, spanning two of the United States advertising industry's most established award bodies, indicate that the campaign was evaluated by peers as achieving a high standard of execution in the Film medium within the Food and Drink and Alcoholic Drinks categories.
Structurally, the campaign demonstrates several qualities that correlate with effectiveness in holiday-season advertising in the United States. The partnership with Lion Babe delivers earned media potential through the duo's existing audience, reducing reliance on paid distribution alone. The Women in Music charitable component provides a shareable social hook with emotional resonance beyond the product category. The reimagining of "Auld Lang Syne" — a culturally embedded holiday touchstone in the United States — ensures immediate contextual recognition while the Lion Babe reinterpretation creates differentiation from conventional seasonal content. These structural advantages, combined with the Clapboard Score of 64 out of 100, suggest a campaign that executes its cultural brief with competence and purpose, even where broader performance metrics remain undisclosed.
"Open Up To Join The Chorus" is a 2018 holiday campaign by Segura Viudas, created by Republica Havas in the United States. It features Lion Babe performing a reimagined "Auld Lang Syne" with ten additional artists and carries a benefit component supporting Women in Music, grounded in the brand's ongoing "Open Up" creative platform.
Lion Babe is a New York-based musical duo comprising Jillian Hervey and Lucas Goodman. Segura Viudas and Republica Havas selected the duo for their genre-crossing musical identity and cultural reach, which aligned with the "Open Up" platform's goal of connecting the brand to a younger, more diverse United States audience than traditional sparkling wine advertising typically targets.
Republica Havas, operating as Segura Viudas' agency of record in the United States, created the campaign. The agency announced the initiative on November 19, 2018, according to republicahavas.com. The campaign was published in December 2018 as part of a broader holiday-season strategy built around the brand's established "Open Up" creative platform.
The campaign earned formal United States industry recognition in 2019. Melissa Smock received Gold honours at both the Telly Awards and the American Advertising Awards for the campaign, as documented by Clapboard.com and adsoftheworld.com. Milton Lebron also received multiple 2019 honours for work on the campaign, per Clapboard.com, affirming its creative and production quality.
Women in Music, the nonprofit advancing gender equity in the music industry, served as the campaign's charitable beneficiary. The social-impact component was integral to the creative concept, linking Segura Viudas' "Open Up" platform to a purpose-driven cause and giving the Lion Babe film a shareable cultural dimension that extended its relevance beyond the Alcoholic Drinks category.
Clapboard assigns this campaign a score of 64 out of 100. The score reflects strong cultural alignment and a clearly differentiated social purpose through the Women in Music partnership and the Lion Babe collaboration, balanced against limited publicly documented consumer reach or sales performance data for the 2018 United States holiday campaign.
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