The Campaign Play
Campari America is activating its 14th annual Negroni Week — running September 21 through 27, 2026 — with a nine-person influencer collective and a consumer rebate offer designed to drive measurable on-premise traffic. The campaign, built around Campari's "Stay Bitter" platform, features actor and producer Alan Cumming as the headliner of a group the brand calls The Bitter Nine: creative figures drawn from entertainment, fashion, food and beverage, hospitality, and photography.
The strategic logic is straightforward. The Negroni ranked as the world's number-one best-selling classic cocktail in Drinks International's 2025 Brands Report, and Campari — a compulsory ingredient per the International Bartenders Association's official recipe — sits at the center of that volume. Enlisting a recognizable cultural figure like Cumming is a bid to extend the brand's relevance beyond the bartending community and into broader lifestyle media, a move consistent with how premium spirits labels have pursued consumer awareness during a period of softening spirits volumes in key Western markets.
Scale and Charitable Leverage
Negroni Week's commercial footprint gives Campari a ready-made activation infrastructure. In 2025, more than 15,000 bars and restaurants across 97 countries participated, collectively raising more than $700,000 for the Slow Food Negroni Week Fund. That fund channels proceeds into education scholarships, innovation awards, and Slow Food Exchanges — grants directed at hospitality professionals and community food-and-beverage projects in over 160 countries. For 2026, Campari is maintaining Slow Food as its charitable partner alongside Imbibe, the drinks media platform that co-produces the event.
The charitable mechanics serve a dual commercial purpose: they give on-premise accounts a cause-marketing hook to promote Negroni specials, and they reinforce Campari's positioning within the bartending community — a constituency that exerts outsized influence on cocktail ordering trends. Allison Varone, Head of Marketing at Campari America, framed the partnership in operational terms: "Negroni Week is an important moment for Campari to celebrate the iconic cocktail while continuing our longstanding partnership with Imbibe and our shared commitment to supporting the global hospitality community."
On-Premise Incentive
To translate brand awareness into measurable sales, Campari is offering consumers in select U.S. markets up to $15 back via receipt submission on Campari Negroni purchases during the promotional window. Receipt-back mechanics have become a standard tool for spirits brands seeking to bridge above-the-line marketing with point-of-sale conversion, particularly in states where direct price promotion is restricted.
The Negroni's equal-parts formula — Campari, sweet vermouth, and gin — has kept the cocktail accessible for bar programs of all scales, contributing to its sustained ranking atop classic cocktail sales charts. For on-premise operators, Negroni Week functions as a reliable annual traffic driver, with the brand's global organizational infrastructure reducing the marketing lift for individual venues. Campari Group (CPRI.MI), the Milan-headquartered parent with a portfolio of more than 50 premium and super-premium spirits brands and distribution in over 190 countries, ranks as the sixth-largest player in the global premium spirits industry — giving the activation reach that few single-brand campaigns can replicate.
For more on aperitivo and bitter-spirits trends shaping bar menus, see our coverage of emerging cocktail categories and the on-premise hospitality recovery.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
