August 13 2007
I’m envisioning a Saturday Night Live Weekend Update report here with something snarky as the punch line to the “new” research that indicates young consumers think there is snobbery in wine. Maybe a quick pan to Seth Meyers and he says, “In other research, college students are alleged to drink too much at keg parties.”
On August 9th, I read an article from Beverageworld.com about research that VinExpo released on consumers aged 20 to 25 and their perceptions of wine. I have to hand it to Beverageworld.com—better late than never.
For some reason, this “news” seemed like I had read it before, despite its publication on August 9th.
After racking my brain and doing some research on Google I found that, lo and behold, the same study was released in the same issue of Wine Business Insider that my company announced a capital investment—in April of this year.
Can a press release from April be propped up as news in August? If so, call this Wine Business Insider article the “exclusive” of the century. If only Lindsay Lohan news could be kept under wraps for several months while “People” magazine mines the information, getting a head start on “Us” and the rest of the scandal rags.
Not only did Wine Business Insider get first access at the story, they got it all to themselves for a whopping four months.
Speaking seriously, I’m not sure if a lazy editor is at work here and the press release surfaced from underneath a pile, or if VinExpo is guilty of sending the same press release out twice, four or five months apart; both are egregiously bad form. And, on top of that, here’s the kicker—there’s no news here. See the headline for this post—this Millenial research breaks exactly zero ground or new information. In fact, Sonoma State University released essentially the same findings two years ago.
A couple of nuggets from the article: transport yourself to 1970 or 1950 for that matter and tell me where the groundbreaking information is:
• “Drinking wine is a part of the new identity that young people create for themselves. Drinking wine is a ‘marker’ of adulthood
• The perception that good wine is expensive and confusion about how to select a wine with so many brands and varieties available continues to be a hindrance to many young people drinking wine more frequently
• There’s a lot of snobbery and pompousness around … An impression that it takes years of experience to learn
The Wine Business Insider article summarized the VinExpo four recommendations as:
• Make wine’s image younger
• Make it more accessible and less elitist
• Take the myth out of wine culture, but keep the magic
• Give more guidance in getting to know wine
I’m reminded that in a current Fast Company article that Al Gore’s resurgence in popular culture is based off of environmental research and a presentation he was giving in the first term of the Clinton presidential years. Just now has it resonated, 12 or 13 years later.
Here’s the bone I have to pick with the wine industry: none of this Millenial research stuff is a revelation. Neither is it a revelation is how quickly wine folks react to the news to make changes to target an emerging market—which is slooooooowly, molasses in January slow. In a business world that reacts in quarterly increments and an online world that deems this stuff old news inside of 72 hours, maybe four months time isn’t so bad for the wine industry that reacts in yearly swaths of time and an International market that works slower than that. Maybe this article is right on time with the pulse of the industry. Regardless, hopefully the Internet is bringing to bear a greater sense of urgency, even if our research reports aren’t.
For more information on Millenials and wine, additional research below from Liz Thach from Sonoma State University—these findings are from 2005. Undoubtedly, there will be an updated research report in 2008 that confirms, yes, what we knew in 2005 is true, yet; still, not much has been done about it. Beverageworld.com will update this story sometime in ‘09.
Sonoma State University Sonoma Insights
Posted in, Wine: A Business Doing Pleasure. Permalink | Comments (2) |
All this talk of snobbery and elitism within the wine industry establishment has made me thirsty.
The marketing and presentation of wine to the coveted millennial demographic is changing and the pace of that change will only accelerate. Rome is burning.
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Funny, I had that same feeling of dejas vous when the Vinexpo study link appeared last week in my daily Benson Marketing Group news blast. Must’ve been a slow news day! On the millennials subject, you’re right, there’s nothing groundbreaking there. (Young people see wine as snobby and intimidating? Who knew!) In the mid-‘90s all the studies, surveys etc. “revealed” the same thing about Generation X’s perception of wine. I do think the industry is trying a little harder to reach out this time around, though.