""We were locked out of our Twitter account," laughs Dan Kleinman, chief brand officer of Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits. "All three people on our IT team were on vacation. For 72 hours, we just had to sit there and watch it blow up." It started when a user called Optimus Prime 32 posted a photo of a bottle captioned, 'Come on y'all, grow up - this is way better than Stella.' The internet seized on it."
"Suddenly everyone was "making a joshumentary" or joking that they "had that Josh in me." "Other brands piled in - Chipotle, Rolling Stone, even agencies - it became a full-on meme," says Kleinman. By the time Josh Cellars regained control of its account, the bottle had become a cultural punch-line - and a purchase trigger. "We were honest about why we were slow to respond.""
In January 2024 a single X post about Josh Cellars triggered a viral meme while the brand was locked out of its account for 72 hours. The original post mocked competitor wine and prompted widespread jokes, user-created memes, and participation from other brands. When control returned, the bottle had become a cultural punch-line and a purchase trigger. The brand responded with honesty, hired younger social staff including an intern named Jessica, shifted from sommelier language to social voice, and leveraged self-deprecating agility. Josh Cellars grew from about 1 million to 7 million cases annually in under a decade. Joe Carr, a former sommelier, originated the everyman positioning for the wine.
Read at The Drum
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