The idea for The Rap Monument came from a challenge - how to turn the brands consumer base from primarily older men to vibrant young millennials. The answer - utilize the already strong existing unofficial relationship that the brand has with Hip Hop. Hip Hop is the most predominant, fashion-forming, socially relevant form of music for young people worldwide and has embraced the brand since day one. The objective was for Hennessy to officially come out and not only support but actively facilitate the creation of the music that has supported it for so long.

The content has over 1.9 million views and counting and the traditional media surrounding it garnered over seven million impressions. Both mainstream and niche Hip Hop press outlets covered The Rap Monument leading to over one thousand press entries - 96% of which mentioned Hennessy. Fans took to social media and created their own hashtag #rapmonument which resulted in over one million organic social impressions. The Rap Monument as a whole helped propel Hennessy’s 2014 year-over-year growth by 12%, the highest in the history of the brand.

The Rap Monument was leaked via radio shows like the BBC One and Boilerroom.tv. Then Noisey released a teaser video and three behind the scenes videos, drawing the global audience into the branded digital hub. All digital media was co-branded and pointed towards a branded hub that housed the branded content. Before every video, thirty second Hennessey pre-roll ran. The co-branded ads worked as gateway to both the content and the Hennessy current campaign creative. The biggest win at the heart of this execution was that the media execution built the program into something that was press-worthy.

The target audience for this campaign were millennial men and their relationship with the brand most likely consisted of them seeing Hennessy in their fathers liquor cabinet or hearing about it in rap songs. The tracks were “leaked” via the radio and digital live streamed performances. This led to a flurry of speculation on Reddit, online forums and Hip Hop blogs world wide. Noisey then released a teaser video and three behind the scenes videos, drawing the global audience into the branded digital hub where they would soon be able to watch The Rap Monument in full.