Out of office: Aviation Gin and Ryan Reynolds

In my never ending quest to fight boring out-of-office replies, I was delighted to find an ally in actor-turned-entrepreneur Ryan Reynolds. Yesterday in Jimmy Fallon’s show, he highlighted his remarkable use of out-of-office replies to promote his Aviation Gin gin brand – leading to up to 20.000 incoming emails per day just to test his out-of-office reply on ryan@aviationgin.com.

Updated March 2020 with new out-of-office-reply below.

Since February 2018, Ryan had set up this structure of out-of-office replies, regularly changing the copy (see some examples below).  It leverages several smart elements: using his star power and typical tone of voice to write funny emails, using interesting copy to attract potential customers to you rather than reaching out to them (and potentially enticing them to be life long fans) and changing the copy regularly to have people check in again and again.

Thanks to social media, celebrities are more accessible now than ever, allowing fans to reach out and sometimes connect with the stars of their favorite movies. Ryan Reynolds took things a step further by setting up an out of office reply for his gin company that captures the star’s sense of humor.

“As owner of Aviation Gin, my mission is to never speak to you like some out of touch Hollywood A-hole. My job is to remain accountable,” the reply reads. “Most of the time, experts describe Aviation in pompous, flowery terms which alienate the average hard working gin drinker. I’ve heard them wax poetic about its restrained notes of juniper. Others have said it’s the subtle lavender and wet, boreal forest earth notes which make it so whimsical.”

The email then continues to say, “Who talks like that? A blowhard, that’s who…I promise, gentle customer, you won’t hear garbage like that from me. I’ll tell you why I like Aviation… Because it tastes like somebody finally made a gin for everyone.”

As said before, Ryan (and his team) keep changing the email, keeping it fresh and interesting. The first auto-reply in February 2018 read: “Thank you for your email and interest in Aviation American Gin! I’m away from my desk at the moment but will respond the moment they give me a desk. … I don’t know whose idea it was to allow me into the gin business, but I can assure you, there are smarter, more reasonable people in charge.” The email by the time the show with Jimmy Fallon aired read “For me, life isn’t just about having my brain cryogenically frozen so I can be revived two hundred years after the apocalypse to dance with the chosen few along the gilded path to Valhalla. It’s also probably about other stuff.”

I can’t wait for other brands to follow …