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April 18 2010
If you’re not familiar with HR 5034, by the end of the week you will be. It’s an H1N1-like acronym for the wine set.
I’ll spare the gory details because there are a number of unanswered questions and reacting vehemently without context creates assumptions and we all know what happens when you assume ... you get tea baggers.
Or, you get the beer wholesalers taking the “weasel in the hen house” route before their cause with craft brewing becomes a significant issue ...
You can get caught up on HR 5034 here, here, here, and here.
The thing that I want to know is, with a draft of a bill introduced by two Democrats and two Republicans, when did the two parties working together become fashionable? I must have missed it on MSNBC and FoxNews.
April 17 2010
In the name of research, I just read my first comic book since The Amazing Spider-Man vanquished Kraven the Hunter circa 1986.
In the process of buying Batgirl, issue 9, the first of a four-part series in a mini-story arc called, “The Flood,” I also visited my first comic book store. Complete with floor to ceiling shelving displaying current and vintage comic books, there were hundreds, maybe thousands of comic books, all representing different series, stories and characters – all complete with colorful covers and scant selling information to navigate me, and unfortunately there weren’t any ratings, either. This, of course, gave me a refreshed appreciation for the wine neophyte trying to pick out a wine at a wine shop.
The word “confusion” only begins to describe what an uneducated comic book purchasing experience is like, not dissimilar to the proverbial “wall of wine” that taunts many.
I went to buy Batgirl because I was tipped off to an interesting story angle on a winery. Like any intrepid writer these days, I saw a wall posting on Facebook.
Foppoli wines is a very small producer of white wines in the Russian River Valley. They produce just three wines (two Chardonnay’s and a Sauvignon Blanc) in breathtakingly scant quantities – around a 1000 total cases, depending on the vintage.
Foppoli also has a back story that transcends the wall of wine, an interesting aside that is at the heart of their success.
2006 was the first vintage for Foppoli, started by twentysomething Dominic Foppoli, the General Manager, and his father, Richard, the winemaker.
These days, it’s tough for any small winery to build a business let alone a micro producer of unoaked whites, but Dominic takes an approach that has roots in his family’s lengthy history in viticulture in both California and the old country. People who buy Foppoli wine aren’t customers, they’re “La Famiglia.” In fact, you might not even be able to buy wine until you’re deemed a part of the family.
According to Dominic, he has spent meaningful time with virtually every member of his allocated wine club before or as they were approved to become a part of the wine club, creating not a service-oriented parent-child relationship, but a sense that, “We’re in this together.”
I like this true north approach, similar to customers that support a local artist. The sensibility is, “We put our blood, sweat and tears into this wine, and we really appreciate you, appreciating the wine. We’ll treat you with respect and we expect the same in return.”
Because of this “Extreme approach to creating a personal connection with my wine, my consumers are much more connected to the wines and the experience of drinking them,” said Foppoli.
It’s a bright move and especially counterintuitive and savvy in the face of the luxury allocation model that became de rigueur over the last decade, a sort of twisted and grotesque status grab.
In fact, the Foppoli way of doing business creates a sense of inter-family pride to the extent that Foppoli is earning a rippling of word-of-mouth currency for which much larger wineries would write large checks.
Members of the club have helped facilitate Foppoli wines with placement in TV shows like Dexter and Eastwick and the coup de grace is wine club member Bryan Q. Miller (an up and coming writer for television and comic books) who writes the Batgirl series and placed a bottle of the 1470 Chardonnay into the current issue.
For Foppoli, the Batgirl placement is another benefit of the “La Famiglia,” but don’t expect to see a press release or anything promotionally untoward, instead they’ll keep it within the family, and keep building outwards, one additional relationship at a time.
April 14 2010
Only the wine enthusiast who lives in a magazine vacuum has missed the new Kendall-Jackson advertising campaign, a media buy so large that that I’ve seen it in at least a ½ dozen magazines that I read on a monthly basis.
A changeover from their previous campaign, “A Taste of the Truth,” the new campaign is less personality driven with Jess Jackson and his wife Barbara Bankes, and more focused on simplicity in messaging and a striking wine backdrop.
The campaign launch press release dated September 9, 2009 indicates a thematic campaign of, “Welcome to Kendall-Jackson Country.”
Headlines I’ve seen this spring are more on the order of, “America’s Most Loved Chardonnay” which is a nice copywriterly way of saying, “They sell a crap load of this and you might like it, too.”
Kendall-Jackson Winery, best known for the number one-selling chardonnay in America, is unveiling a new advertising campaign this fall.
“Welcome to Kendall-Jackson Country” heralds a strikingly different image and a dynamic outreach to new consumers. The campaign, which (debuted) in November publications, pictures the majestic, visually-stunning mountainside vineyards where many of the winery’s grapes are sourced—evoking a sense of place, discovery and adventure.
The ads dramatically demonstrate the Jackson family’s beautiful, rugged, mountainous, coastal vineyards from which Kendall-Jackson wines are made (the more harsh the terrain, the longer it takes for grapes to ripen, and the more flavorful they become). More than that, the ads subtly invite people to come to the California wine country—both literally and indirectly through the wine.
“Jess Jackson, our founder and CEO, loves the land and deeply values what it gives us. His entry into the wine industry came as a result of that passion. The Jackson family owns some of the richest and most magnificent wine-growing land in the country. With this campaign, we wanted to capture Jess’s vision and share with the world the extraordinary places where we grow the grapes from which we make extraordinary wine. We wanted to invite consumers into our world, to step into the dream that fine wine and the wine country represent for so many people,” said chief marketing officer, Stephen Croncota.
Now, this is all well and fine, I’m not slagging Kendall-Jackson. I’m trying to eschew the tact of tackling the big(ger) business aspect of the wine business which everybody seems so fond of skewering while they punch the snooze button on their wage slaves clock from, natch, a business in the business of earning a profit.
Instead, this got me thinking about the notion of branding, messaging and the control thereof. It’s now accepted wisdom that a company doesn’t own a brand, consumers own the brand, transposing whatever they want onto it. Businesses are merely stewards in a constant tug of war with perception versus reality, adjusting the steering wheel to avoid potholes and such.
So, amusing it is, when I see the below picture. Easy to take shots at Kendall-Jackson for overly photoshopped visages of “mountainous, coastal vineyards” with a warm fuzzy headline, but then you’re working on a brand against a moving consumer target that sees, “KenJack 1097” wouldn’t you do the same?
I have to believe that “KenJack” growing into popular parlance akin to “Jim, Jack, Johnnie and Jose,” or, God forbid, something like “Brangelina” is about the worst possible outcome for a wine brand manager who is trying to preserve some semblance of winery, the Franzia doppelganger.
*Photo—as seen in Indianapolis, IN at 21st Amendment Liquor in a neighborhood called, “Broad Ripple.”
April 12 2010
Subtly, in the last week, there has been an evolution in wine media.
First, Gary Vaynerchuk, somebody who, without empirical quantification, I would consider to be the 2nd most recognizable figure in the world of wine behind Robert Parker (No, I haven’t forgotten about Robinson, Spurrier, Broadbent, et al) revealed via his personal blog that a one man media empire has limitations.
He noted in a 15 minute video soliloquy, replete with bags under his eyes denoting an unspoken dogged tiredness (a re-occurring condition for him over the last nine months), that he was limiting his activities over the balance of the year – Twitter and social media, speaking engagements and such.
It’s an interesting move, and very Urban Meyer-esque, albeit not surprising for anybody who has logged 80-hour weeks for a period of time and knows the diminishing returns. While Vaynerchuk pins his public respite on, “Going Buddha” and a Monk-like exile (mixing metaphors) in order to read, learn and think about the current state of technology, his unspoken truth has to be that you can’t keep that work pace up without A) Burning out B) Getting divorced or C) All of the above.
It’s anticipated that he’ll continue with Wine Library TV, his raison d’etre, which has seen diminishing quantity over the last couple of months as his travel and other responsibilities have dictated divided attention.
I don’t think Vaynerchuk’s ambition will allow him a very long break, but it would be nice to see him focus his efforts on the wine world where he has done much good (in a short amount of time) to engender a new generation of wine drinkers, while not exactly kowtowing to the establishment. Wine can use him. Selfishly, I’d like for him to be an agent for change for the wine business (with both feet in, instead of one) as opposed to carrying a symbolic banner for social media and trying to buy the NY Jets. His calling card and influence could be worldwide during a transformative period in wine in which Parker’s replacement is ready to be anointed, as a gigantic generation of wine drinkers come online. Time will tell, however.
Second, I noted with interest that Deb Harkness, writer at Good Wine Under $20, won the best wine blog award in the Saveur magazine blog awards.
Good for Deb, I say. She is a gem of a woman and one of the most genuine souls I know. Her win is interesting to me because Joe Roberts from 1WineDude won the same award from FoodBuzz in early November. And, Alder from Vinography has won the last two years at the American Wine Blog Awards, which closed nominations for the 2010 version last week.
Ironically enough, according to compete.com, none of the winners can hold a candle to Dr. Vino in terms of readership, and he didn’t win any of the awards.
What do three different winners in three different contests (with 10 different finalist nominations spanning 14 total nominations and one separate leader in total readership) mean? There are a lot of good wine blogs out there. More importantly, it means that wine blogs are splintering and growing with different audiences. Instead of one mass of blogs being a bit on the clique-ish and insider-ish side, it means that wine blogging is segmenting into sub-niches. One man’s Vinography is another man’s Wine Whore. Much like high school, you’re starting to see the “cool kid” grouping of wine blogs, the “jocks,” the “smart kids,” the “hang out on the bridge, smoke cigarettes and wear black” wine blogs and those that transcend and straddle groupings, to use an analogy.
In this period of time, wine blog growth is unwieldy, because what was once a small community is, like Gary Vaynerchuk, becoming bigger than itself. The next year or so will have bloggers in their gawky, awkward phase, but the future looks good for independent, online wine writing.
Next, that “thud” you hear is Wine & Spirits Daily going all subscription-based for its daily wine and spirits business missive.
In the wake of Rich Cartiere’s untimely passing in the summer of ’08, the wine newsletter business has seen Lewis Perdue launch “Wine Industry Insight” to fill the gap next the Wine Business Insider published by Wine Business Monthly magazine and now Wine & Spirits daily tries its hand at a paid scheme.
Ponderously, Wine & Spirits Daily is going all-in, all at once, stopping their daily email/web site article and going paid, for $290 a year (or $5 cheaper than Wine Business Insider).
Really, the only way you can go paid subscription for an online product would be to double-up the content, give some away for free and keep the good stuff behind the gate and then lead your readers into the premium content.
To go from free to pay in the span of 24 hours without a substantial change in the scope, quality or quantity of your product? I dunno. A double “I dunno” when according to compete.com Wine & Spirits Daily site traffic is a fraction of this site.
Time will tell if there is a paying audience for wine business writing that is long on witness reportage and short on insight and analysis. Most people don’t give a damn that there was a car accident. They want to know the whys and wherefores.
Finally, Jay McInerney and Lettie Teague launched their wine writing efforts for the Wall Street Journal. I speculated on the reasoning behind their appointment a couple of weeks back. The launch of the WSJ’s “On Wine” roughly coincides with the aggregation of Eric Asimov’s The Pour blog at the New York Times into a bigger blog called “Diner’s Journal,” that includes Mark Bittman and other contributors. It’s a welcome change for me, given that I like the Times writers across the board and I harbor a longing for a life of leisure in which my morning coffee and New York Times segues into writing a blog post before I plan dinner. Others haven’t cared for the silo-based Asimov blog being lumped in with others.
Speaking of not caring for it much, the real interesting aspect of the Saturday Wall Street Journal column that will alternate between Lettie Teague and McInerney, is the blog that accompanies it. McInerney has always been a bit of a cad, and critics historically haven’t been afraid of taking shots at him for being a nouveau rich, exhaust sniffing socialite. Personally, I like his writing – he’s my favorite wine writer next to Matt Kramer. I’m glad he has a venue for wine writing and I hope he engages in the comments section.
Speaking of which, the comments to the first blog post widely lamented the loss of Dottie and John ...
You can bookmark the WSJ wine site here. Or, load into your RSS feed reader here.
April 12 2010
What’s the difference between the culture a winery fosters for its employees, the hospitality it offers customers and the overarching service it will need to offer in the future to remain competitive?
No, this isn’t a joke with a punch line. However, there is comedic tragedy in knowing that in addition to creating a good product that is accessible, a successful winery must also have a healthy culture focused on the right things, hospitality that supports its location and legacy AND a new focus on omnipresent service.
Life just doesn’t ever let up, does it?
I’ve been spending time trying to parse marketing trends in discerning what an economic recovery means for the wine business. At the least, it’s helpful to understand how high-level trends impact consumer packaged goods while being pragmatic that change doesn’t occur overnight, instead dappling in waves until the new-new is accepted reality.
Yet, some clues are starting to reveal themselves.
For years, we’ve been hearing that, “Service is the new selling.” And, the day where that becomes more truth than marketing nicety may, in fact, be here.
I had my “a-ha” moment as I read a trend brief called, “Brand Butlers.”
The topline summary of the report says:
With pragmatic, convenience-loving consumers enjoying instant access to an ever-growing number of support services and tools (both offline and online), brands urgently need to hone their “butlering skills,” focusing on assisting consumers to make the most of their daily lives, versus the old model of selling them a lifestyle if not identity.
The 10-page report summary continues by noting:
For consumers, time, convenience, control and independence are the new currencies. This need requires B2C brands to turn many of their “campaigns” if not all interactions with their customers into broader services. In short: a shift from “broadcasting” to assisting.
This isn’t to say that the wine business doesn’t get some areas of service right.
Certainly, one area of service that wineries do extremely well is the notion of hospitality for its guests at the winery; this has been true for 30 years.
Yet, what the trend report indicates is that service in the way that the wine business knows well isn’t good enough.
And, I would add a second complexity when I say that a new service model for consumer packaged goods (i.e. wine) is only as good as the esprit de corp that is instilled in the winery employees who execute the service. A few weeks back I examined “culture” in the wineries, or, rather, the lack of it, and I suggested that customer service and the brand begins inside the winery with core set of principles.
While I didn’t explicitly note it, Zappos.com, the online shoe retailer, embodies this notion as well as anybody.
The example that I’ve used to explain this new phenomenon in “Butlering skills” or “Concierge selling” is the fact that Millenials are the intended target for much mainstream marketing and this is increasingly so in wine. Millenials are also the children of so-called “Helicopter” parents – protective, nurturing, swooping in feel-good doers that solve problems.
If you look at marketing as a form of brand mothering, the jump to reconcile “Brand butlering” isn’t too far away.
Put another way, despite a reduction in white table cloth dining experiences, that level of service that is being requested in everyday culture – present, but unobtrusive, the water glass gets refilled without a break in conversation, is quickly becoming the standard.
Yet, another example, is OnStar – the in-car safety and protection system. The commercials tout that after getting in a car accident operators alert police and medical personnel – a sort of driving guardian angel.
These are all examples of marketing being “on-demand.” Available, subtle, relevant and influential at the right time.
The Trendwatching report continues with eight categorical examples of types of “Brand butlering” though the categorical possibilities are as endless as the different types of brands there are compared against human condition. They examples provided include:
• Transparency and “In the know”
• Saving money
• Finding
• Connectivity
• Health, nutrition and exercise
• Skills and advice
• Eco
• Tool & amenities
In summary, I am by no means a marketing guru dispensing advice. Instead, I tend to be an assimilator of disparate information trying to place a complex world into something that makes sense. I’ve found that whenever I don’t truly “get” something that means I haven’t done enough research to understand it. My hunch and research here tells me that the wine trends of Millenials, social media and “service is the new selling” becomes a lot more interesting and understandable when placed in the crucible of “Brand butlering.”
The question now is: does a winery discern a difference between culture, hospitality and service and if so how do they capitalize on a potentially new customer requisite?
Download the full “Brand Butlers” report.
Order the Zappos Culture book.
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