“Excellence doesn’t stand still, waiting for us. It’s up to us to go and create these moments together. Time is precious. We’re just being sure we’re living our best years now, rather than waiting for them” says Yifeng Li as he stars in the Rémy Martin XO China campaign.
Rémy Martin is synonymous with luxury and by luxury, we mean that it has produced one of the best-known and most popular cognacs in the world. Luxury, in a cultural cache context. While the 1724 company set the standard for VSOP Cognacs worldwide in 1927, it was in 1948 that the brand decided to use grapes exclusively from the Petite Champagne and Grand Champagne crus which resulted in higher quality cognacs. Its XO expression, however, was launched in 1981 and is regarded as the highest quality of the six crus permitted by French law.
Rich, complex, and engaging, the French brand has announced its latest campaign for XO in China starring multi-award-winning actor-singer Yifeng Li. The creative raison d’être? Both are committed to telling stories (Yifeng himself has an impressive rolodex of films) as they aspire to celebrate even the smallest moments in life.
The former is an actor who seems himself in a series of hit movies where his roles center around the relationships he has with the people around him: 2015’s “Forever Young” where he livens up the life of someone with a band of friends, 2018’s “Animal World” where his decisions affect the mortality of his loved one and 2021’s “The Pioneer” which is his most serious yet: a role where he juggles the light and dark of what it means to be human. The latter? One sentence to succinctly summarise it. Rémy Martin’s XO is the sine qua non of social situations, amber nectar that just like Li when he acts himself, allows its drinker to play the role in any situation be it a romantic one or to simply, just have a good time.
View this post on Instagram
Most importantly, however, would be that they understand that time — a commodity which most of us are short of nowadays — is as precious as it should be partaken in. When was the last time you enjoyed a drink with friends or loved ones? And by having a drink, we mean making meaningful connections sans tapping on a phone. In short, the film’s message: Excellence takes time, taste it now” is almost a slogan for the times we live in.
Conceptualised as a series of vignettes of which Yifeng finds himself as the main character — attending an art opening, on top of a skyscraper, at an awards show after-party with friends, colleagues, and loved ones — time is literally represented by the pendulum on a clock at the beginning of the Rémy Martin XO film, urging us to get up, stand at attention and enjoy the moments time itself gives us.
“Excellence doesn’t stand still, waiting for us. It’s up to us to go and create these moments together. Time is precious. We’re just being sure we’re living our best years now, rather than waiting for them” says Li himself. Happiness should not be found at the bottom of a bottle but instead, savoured with each sip.
“At Rémy Martin, we always team up with people on a quest for excellence. Yifeng Li is a remarkable talent with a dazzling array of success stories behind him, but he remains humble. With his feet on the ground, he aims for the stars just like the Centaur, Rémy Martin’s brand figurehead for 150 years. He’s the ideal spokesman for XO in China.” says Amaury Vinclet, Global Executive Director at Rémy Martin.
Excellence and at times its absence sits in the center of whatever we do be it our jobs, relationships, or hobbies but how individual or idiosyncratic can this concept be? It’s simple. Take a sip of Rémy Martin XO, have a breather, and then begin again on the road you wish to take. Time is ticking but one can control what it ticks for.
Once you’re done with this story, click here to catch up with our March 2022 cover stars, BTS!
RELATED ARTICLES
