Great atmosphere, quality food, and genuine conversation
We partnered with Jack Daniel’s to host Jack’s Table – an immersive UK brand activation dinner designed to bring high-level bartenders closer to the brand through atmosphere, storytelling, and shared moments.
Hosted at the The Libertine, London, the evening blended curated drinks, live music, and relaxed interaction, ending with two winners securing places on an incentive trip to Tennessee.
Building the brand through setting, not speeches.
From the outset, the purpose of Jack’s Table was clear: create a night that felt memorable and rooted in Jack Daniel’s values, aimed at a new generation of independent spirits within the bartender community. The client’s direction leaned heavily into the idea of a venue with edge – “cave-like”, industrial, and a little unconventional – so we anchored our proposal around a space that could naturally carry that mood.
The Libertine, London fit that requirement well, and we brought confidence to that venue choice because we’d delivered there before and knew it could support the style of experience the brief called for.
We approached the creative in a way that respected the brand’s strength. Jack Daniel’s already has such a distinctive visual identity that the job wasn’t to invent a new event brand from scratch, it was to apply their existing look and feel consistently across the venue and guest touchpoints. We rolled branding across key printed and on-site elements including menus and event materials, keeping everything cohesive and appropriately premium without overcomplicating it.
Where we did add originality was in the experience design, building interactive moments that felt natural for bartenders and didn’t interrupt the flow of the evening. The brief wanted interactivity, so we developed additional elements that elevated the night without making it feel staged. That included sourcing a vintage safe as a physical centrepiece for the prize mechanic, complete with padlocks and a winner reveal designed to create a proper moment towards the end of the event. We also created a side-room concept – “the parlour” – that gave guests something to explore and come back to during the night, helping keep energy up while still feeling relaxed.
XSEM really took time to digest and understand the brief. The team asked lots of questions and helped us to really refine exactly what we wanted to achieve. They’ve taken a project with multiple people involved, lots of views and opinions, and have been able to really help us to process and deliver something genuinely outstanding.
A premium guest journey, delivered with precision.
To create anticipation pre-event, we produced branded invitation gift boxes that included a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a letter inviting guests to Jack’s Table. These were distributed by the client’s sales team and hand-delivered into bars, which helped make the invitation feel personal and high-value.
On the night itself, our focus was on making the experience feel effortless for guests while keeping delivery tight behind the scenes. From the moment guests walked through the door, the atmosphere did the heavy lifting: there was a live band playing with Tennessee/country-inspired energy, setting the tone immediately. Guests were welcomed with a signature cocktail and guided into the main space where the central feature was impossible to miss: a long table dressed for 80, creating a communal ‘everyone together’ feel.
We intentionally kept brand storytelling light-touch. The client wanted guests to engage with Jack Daniel’s and its values, but we avoided forcing a heavy narrative about the distillery or history. Instead, the brand ambassador hosted the evening in a way that felt natural, welcoming guests in, building the room energy, and gently steering people through the night once enough guests had arrived. The product integration came through the experience rather than a hard sell: six signature cocktails showcased the whiskey in ways bartenders could take inspiration from, with the implied outcome being “I could do this in my bar”.
We also built in moments that gave guests permission to move, mingle, and engage at their own pace. In the parlour space, we ran a branded game and created a friendly competitive edge through a leaderboard, but without turning it into a ‘forced fun’ activation. Guests could opt in naturally, and when we put more emphasis on it later in the evening, it drew real brand engagement, including a point where there was literally a queue. That balance mattered, it kept the tone relaxed while still delivering interaction and standout moments.
A launch that delivered impact
Jack’s Table achieved what it needed to: it brought the right people together, immersed them in the brand world, and created a memorable shared experience without feeling overly scripted. The audience was specifically premium bartenders – people working in high-level hotel bars, large bar groups, and the kind of venues Jack Daniel’s wanted attention from – and we designed the night around what would land for them: great atmosphere, quality food served family-style, distinctive cocktails, and space for genuine conversation.
From a delivery perspective, we supported the client across the essentials that matter most in an event like this: guest comms, branded touchpoints, registration and check-in, and on-site coordination – all while staying faithful to the Jack Daniel’s brand identity rather than trying to reinvent it.
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