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November 18 2009
I’m learning that developing the new darling on the wine scene is one part zeitgeist and three parts effort.
Marketing effort, that is.
Yes, agencies that do wine PR and marketing, mostly those doing large umbrella campaign work for country or varietal associations, might be the under-acknowledged heroes in the wine industry, bringing new varietals to light via a focused effort on creating mindshare.
In the past, I have naively noted that country association advertising in wine glossies was a waste of money. Ah, the precociousness of youth. What I didn’t know at the time (but now realize) is that wine country association advertising is a part of a multi-pronged marketing plan aimed at the hearts and minds of wine influencer’s and consumers and it is primarily driven by PR and marketing pros. Instead of “Making the Muse,” I could have just as easily called this post, “Battleground U.S.”
Seemingly, everybody is ramping up their marketing efforts in the states. Not that this is a bad thing, quite the opposite. Wine marketing people are increasingly acting as the tastemakers for the future. And, with wine quality being uniformly superb around the world, it’s a benefit that forward-thinking wine countries and the professionals that they work with bring under-acknowledged wines to the forefront.
By way of context, it was with interest that I recently found out that color trends for our fashion is governed by a group called the Color Marketing Group (CMG) based in Alexandria, Virginia. A non-profit consortium of color experts, CMG forecasts direction in the form of their Color Directions® guidance document nineteen months in advance for all industries, manufactured products and services.
Based on these color forecasts, the Color Management Group members “translate” that information into salable colors for manufactured products in all industries.
So, if you’re wearing a lavender shirt and painting your bedroom robin’s egg blue in the spring of 2011, you now know who to thank.
Trends management, related to wine, is interesting to me because it used to be that in the wine world Sommeliers were the trendsetters; the Color Management group as it were. Gravitating to and latching on to quirkiness and neglected varietals, the unspoken secret society of Sommeliers built a varietal over a period of years, wine list after wine list. Gruner Veltliner and Condrieu are two notable examples from the last decade that spring to mind. Condrieu is interesting to note because acreage under vine for Vigonier, the primary grape grown in the Condrieu AOC, has increased in the U.S. over the last decade, but mindshare has remained flat—mostly because of a lack of unified varietal marketing, in my opinion.
However, this trendsetting is no longer a monastic pursuit, at least not in the singular sense. Sommeliers have help and their influence is being buttressed by the online wine scene. In a hyper-connected world, where the stakes are high, it seems as if mindshare for varietals is developing in 12 and 24-month campaigns at a level more organized than “organic growth,” making the “tipping point” something that can be managed.
Take Wines of Chile for example. What will we be drinking in the next couple of years, a newly omnipresent varietal that will enter our wine vocabulary like Malbec and Albarino before it? Carmenere.
With a plum piece written in Saveur magazine by David Rosengarten, the trickledown effect from Wines of Chile and their marketing firm RFBinder is already happening.
According to Atalanta Rafferty from RFBinder, the agency responsible for two large Wines of Chile online wine tastings this year:
“Over the past couple of years, we have focused on changing the perception of Chilean wines (to make) them a player in the above $10 wines (category).”
We see the ‘Discover Carmenere’ online wine tasting (as) an example of how we worked to educate the media about the quality and diversity of Chile by highlighting a key varietal and the different wine regions of Chile. We have also included top sommeliers in our education program conducting a Carmenere seminar with winemakers as (a) part of our annual Grand Tasting.”
Rafferty noted that Chilean wines have gained popularity and awareness (read: mindshare and marketshare) over the last several years leading to an increase in market penetration from 8% in ’06 to 10% in ’09.
Said Rafferty, “Wines of Chile also defines success in the way journalists, bloggers and top sommeliers are talking about Carmenere. Consumer and trade publications have published features on Carmenere and other Chilean varietals – like David Rosengarten’s story on Carmenere in Saveur this month.
Looking forward, Wines of Chile plans to continue to promote Carmenere as one of Chile’s signature (varieties).”
Rob Bralow, a PR rep. for Gregory White PR, the firm who manages Chilean winery Vina Carmen noted, “These regional programs are great, they give a sense of unification to a region, a single message for the consumer to digest.”
This is all very savvy marketing. As a wine enthusiast (and alpha consumer), I have patterns of buying behavior that I move in and out of, and Carmenere wasn’t a part of that program a year ago. However, now, understanding the regional lay of the land in Chile and tasting a half dozen bottles, I’m much more likely to look for a Carmenere when I’m wine shopping in general and, in particular, looking for a Cabernet Franc, especially if the trade-off merits are slight and Chile offers a better price value. And, of course, I’m also likely to write about this in some form or another as life experiences filter through the wine prism.
That said, I’m no trends soothsayer, but in order to prognosticate the future and determine the next up and coming varietal or region you really only need to follow the marketing focus. So, what’s up next? Soave from Italy and Georgian wines from Eastern Europe!
Next time we want to decry the pervasive hand of marketing for its invasiveness, let’s pause for a moment and at least look at it within context. For all of the inventiveness of wine enthusiasts who seek out the unknown, chances are good that your newly discovered varietal had a helping hand helping you to “discover” your next muse.
November 16 2009
As related to politics, the phrases “exceedingly complex” and “party faction” have nothing on the wine business.
I’m convinced that the wine world is not only a microcosm of our world at large, but also emblematic of our politics – notably the special interests.
Seemingly, there are as many special interest groups in the wine world as there are lobbyists on The Hill.
I’ve been doing a lot of regional travel lately and listening to my fair share of talk radio with all of the windshield time. When I get tired of sports talk and NPR, I flip to whatever conservative talk radio station appears through the crackles on the AM dial just to get a more complete picture of “the conversation.” Phew, based on the dogmatism, you might think Obama was a cloven-footed heathen carrying a pitchfork.
Our national politics are messy, crazy, and hard to decipher ... in the Republican party alone (according to vaunted source of accuracy, Wikipedia), there are at least 10 factions.
Fortunately(I think), the wine world isn’t governed, at least not in a classic sense, and it shows some of its beauty in its glorious, messy diversity, but what would happen if the wine world was a constituency that needed to be placated by a politico? Well, it gets messy.
November 14 2009
There are two different categories to write about wine topics that will elicit a fervent response – you can write about hot button issues like points scoring or you can write about the navel-gazing three-headed monster known as “online wine writing” encompassing:
• Online wine writers vs. mainstream writers
• Credibility and ethics
• Monetization
Each will cause a response with a certainty normally accorded prognosticators predicting the sun coming up tomorrow.
I note this because it is only after weeks of procrastination coupled with a hardy constitution that I approach one of the biggest online wine “tempests in the teapot.” It’s a conversation fraught with peril, equivalent to a Mom wearing heels, hot pants, and a cleavage peeking top at a PTA bake sale filled with hovering suburban frumps.
I’m talking about money. Specifically, it’s the notion of how exactly wine writers get paid when online advertising is only exceeded in scarcity by paying gigs.
By way of context, in August I wrote a series of re-cap posts about Rockaway wine and indicated I wanted to explore the revenue aspects of online wine writing.
I chickened out.
This past week I again mentioned wanting to explore the issue, and now I WANT to chicken out again.
The issue isn’t my cowardice, it’s just that talking about the unknown relative to wine writing in conjunction with money incites equal parts dissension and derision – not a situation that I am afraid of, it’s just something I don’t readily try to provoke. Plus, it’s a bit off-topic from this blog.
Principally, however, I want to briefly touch on it because so many voices in the wine world treat the money conversation as inextricably linked to ethics and with a piety normally reserved for Catholic priests who clandestinely hold altar boy sleepovers. And, unfortunately, they can speak to contemporary trends as well as I can say mass in Latin.
So, couched innocently, I’ll very briefly say it on a Saturday when my Mom and the search engines are the only ones reading …
As wine writing continues to make its move online, increasingly brands will be crafted by individuals and not mastheads with editorial guidelines and ethical statements. This much we already know. Simply, there will be more “wine personalities” in the constellation, with varying degrees of luminescence. Wine content will be the natural end result, but it will be less a part of the “journalism” conversation and more a part of the “personality” and “marketing” conversation. Whether or not these people are “critics,” “journalists” or “lifestyle writers” in practical application is really immaterial because they’re perceived as influencers not in a journalistic way, but as leaders of a niche of fans.
In doing so, as “wine personalities” continue to develop apace they will be sought out by wineries and wine companies who seek to work with these people as influencers, in the form of a “Brand Advocate.”
Put simply, they’ll be endorsers or “advocates” with sponsorships while providing services accordingly.
The issue of ethics then becomes a reasonably moot point because ethics are typically guided by the mastheads for which people write and vary wildly. The real issue becomes integrity.
It won’t be a matter of whether or not it’s ethical to consistently write and promote a wine because somebody happens to be earning some level of an honorarium, it will be a matter of their integrity, a personal policing allowing people to live and die by their own sword. Do you believe them? Should you?
I won’t get into a blow-by-blow breakdown of what endorsement and sponsorship means, separate from advertising. I’ll let people draw their own deductions. I will note, however, that endorsements are occurring in other blog segments and it’s only a matter of time before it hits the wine niche.
Check out the Tony Stewart Burger King commercials for a fun, ethical sensibility on endorsements.
For additional reading on the notion of sponsorship and endorsements check out the following links:
Add Sponsored Conversations to Your Toolbox
Citizen Journalists to Citizen Marketers
November 11 2009
I must be on every wine retailer email list under the sun—too many to count and the usual suspects, too—K&L, Garagiste and a number of others from around the country. This, of course, is different than the physical flyers, brochures and catalogs that show up in the good old fashion mailbox, which are also numerous—Kermit Lynch, Crush Wine & Spirits, Sherry-Lehmann, and a host of others.
I read through these emails and catalogs just to see what’s going on and who is selling what—much the same way that I flip through the Pottery Barn catalog even though I’m pretty sure the last time I bought something it was a gift card for a wedding circa 2001. Oh, I’ll occasionally buy from the out-of-state wine guys, (those that will illicitly ship to Indianapolis—you know who you are—my shepherds on the wine underground railroad; my comrades in the “don’t ask, don’t tell” wine army) but more often than not I shop local. Here’s the rub in this situation, though—the wine shop with the largest, deepest selection in town, a BevMo or a Binny’s by like comparison, is also the shop that I hate going to—I’ve had a couple of customer service issues, the floor staff talk down to you, and a lot of other reasons that are legitimate, but too long-winded to repeat here. I still go there when I have to and I curse to myself as I begrudgingly hand over my debit card.
And, for reasons that I can best describe as self-flagellation, I always read this wine shop’s monthly flyer—mostly to copy-edit the damn thing. It’s a messy eight or nine-pager written by the owner, replete with bad clip art, typos and other acts of profound language villainy and hackneyed marketing.
Now, I should note that those that live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. I make a decent mockery of the English language—particularly with the use of the possessive, the occasional passive voice and the regrettable use of too many adverbs. However, one thing I make a deeply concerted effort to do is fact-check. If I state something as fact, I attribute it, link to it or double-check it if I paraphrase. It’s a bugaboo I’ve carried since college. I may occasionally be full of shit, but at least it’s factual. And, with the Internet, there’s really no reason not to triple check things ... by virtue of my dogmatism, I have an extremely low threshold for fact-checking laziness ... laziness like, oh, I dunno, a certain Indianapolis wine retailer stating that MIKE GRGICH IS DEAD.
For the love of God and all that is Holy, how can you NOT pop a browser to search for “Mike Grgich” and see that he’s not dead??
It’s enough to make you overlook the misspelling of “excited.” It’s enough to make you overlook the inflated score he gave the Chard—not 89 points, a solid 90 points.
If you the image below is too small you can download the flyer (here) and scroll down to page 6 to see the kind of wine situation we’re dealing with in the Circle City. It’s just another circumstance in life’s rich pageant.
Video date: 9/25/09
November 10 2009
The year 2009 will be known for many things: notably the most difficult economic period of time since The Great Depression, a circumstance that has left little unaffected. However, less notably, 2009 will also be known as the year that our wine media intractably changed forever.
Despite much virtual ink being spilled this year about mainstream wine writers and their amateur counterparts on the Internet (bloggers and such), it’s still a conversation fraught with teeth gnashing and in situ analysis; it’s a crystal ball gazing conversation about the great big maw known as the “unknown” and what it will bring. And, while all of these conversations are framed in an “us vs. them” “now vs. future” context, the reality is that the lines have already broken down to the point of indecipherability.
It’s less Faustian bargain and more manifest reality.
To quote the comic strip Pogo from 1970, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
In years past, wine writers mostly wrote offline for a masthead with some dabbling online. Nowadays, however, most wine writers write online with some dabbling offline. It’s a 180 degree turn around and it has mostly happened in the last 14 months.
Simply, there are no professional wine writers or bloggers anymore – we’re all in the same online pool now as a new set of standards take shape for classifying merit.
Two summarizing points:
A) The term “blogger” is passé
There are professional wine writers, professional-amateur (pro-am) wine writers and people that keep wine journals online. Ultimately, the delivery vehicle doesn’t much matter anymore. And, frankly, I don’t want to be considered a blogger anymore and neither should others who consider their work thoughtfully. While it’s a very “affected” thing to say, it’s true. To quote Bernie, a supporting character in the 1986 movie, About Last Night, “A pro, Danny? A pro is how you think of yourself.”
B) The conversation of how people that write about wine get paid has less to do with advertising and more to do with endorsements and sponsorships.
This is a topic I’ll get into in a subsequent post, but it will blur the lines of editorial to a far greater extent than what is indicated by a recent post elsewhere on wine writers hopping back and forth between public relations and journalism.
By way of context, I’ve noticed several things that have led me to these seemingly simple conclusions that are far from simple.
1) Wine Writers Symposium sees wild shifts in audience
W.R. Tish wrote an article on the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers in the June edition of Wine Business Monthly. In that article he noted:
As a group, the symposium-goers represented the reality that wine writing has become a many-headed beast. What separated these writers from their peers was a desire to congregate with fellow scribes in a setting both rich in wine and deep in talented panelists and presenters. What they lacked in Parker-esque panache they more than made up for in passion and commitment.
So which way is the wind blowing in wine writing these days? As an attendee at the first (2005) and most recent symposia, I can state with certainty: it is blowing, with gale force, toward the Internet.
2) Wine sampling to online wine writers has increased 20X
While a novelty in the beginning, wine samples, as indicated by the now standard FTC disclosures, has increased at an incalculable rate. By my personal estimate, I would say at least by a factor of 20X based on quantity.
3) Top bloggers are … professionals
A recent Wine Opinions polled named the top seven wine bloggers and the list comprised, well, all professionals of some sort – Eric Asimov, Jancis Robinson, Stephen Tanzer, Eric Orange from Localwinevents.com, published book author Tyler Colman, wine retailer and personality Gary Vaynerchuk, and Alder Yarrow.
4) Lifestyle journalist starts an online food and wine property
Corie Brown, ex-Los Angeles Times reporter, who covered wine topics, has started an online media property called Zester Daily (as noted in the comments section at Vinography.com).
5) Technorati says of blogging, “Mo Betta’ ”
The 2009 Technorati State of the Blogosphere report, the fifth edition of this annual survey of all things blogging, doesn’t have much new to say except discussing professional bloggers.
6) The book, “Say Everything,” says what needs to be said
In an impeccably researched historical view of blogging, author Scott Rosenberg notes in his book, Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming and Why It Matters, “Historically, the succession of media forms and technologies follows a predictable pattern: every innovation arrives with a fanfare announcing that it will replace its predecessor. But when the dust settles, the newcomer almost always winds up having redefined that predecessor rather than eliminated it.”
7) The Gartner Hype Cycle moves blogging down the path
Most probably aren’t familiar with the “Gartner Hype Cycle.” Conducted by Gartner, a technology research and advisory company, they provide a framework for placing trends in context based on sentiment and adoption. In the most recent “Hype Cycle” for social software, released in July, they moved “blogging” from the “slope of enlightenment” to the “plateau of productivity” year over year.
By the Gartner definition, this move has blogging transcending a 2008 sentiment of, “experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology” to 2009’s, “A technology reaches the ‘plateau of productivity’ as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations.”
My overall point is this: when hindsight being 20/20 turns into perfect vision, 2009 will be the year in which we note that the cheese moved for good. There are no longer bloggers or professional writers. They are one and the same. Some writers are better than others. Some writers write for a living, while others are hobbyists. Even those hobbyists may pursue their craft ardently; a separation from those that keep online journals for more satisfaction and less externally provided, feedback-oriented gravitas. But, it’s here and it’s now.
In my next post, I’ll define the changing landscape of a little thing called money.
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