April 13 2007
I love it when Indiana and wine intersect. In fact, I never miss an opportunity to highlight the offbeat charm of my home state and ties to the wider wine world.
My favorite trivia question used to be, “What was the name of the team sponsor for the ‘Bad News Bears’” and now my favorite trivia is going to be, “What do funeral caskets, hospital beds and Monkey Bay wine have in common?”
The answer is Peter H. Soderberg, of course.
Mr. Soderberg, president of a company called Hillenbrand Industries based in Batesville, Indiana, was named to the Board of Directors at Constellation Brands, the #2 largest wine company in the country, this past week.
Now, to most people, the burial casket (not too mention hospital equipment) industry is completely foreign, but my father was in the funeral business for 35 years, so the name Batesville caskets, isn’t completely out of left field for me.
And Batesville is in the Ohio River Valley appellation, as the crow flies, southeast of Indianapolis on the way to Cincinnati.
Yet, anybody that pays attention to Board appointments would surely scratch their head at somebody with a business-to-business healthcare background like Soderberg being named to the board at a consumer brand company like Constellation. A quick search of the Internet indicates that Soderberg has a lengthy business history in New York before his relocation to Indiana in March of 2006 to run Hillenbrand Industries, so he likely made some long ago connections that are yielding results today.
We’ll assume that the Soderberg was hired for his overall business acumen and not his casket knowledge. Though, perhaps, Mr. Soderberg can help Constellation bury dead brands.
Another Indiana company, highlighted in the April 7th issue of the Indianapolis Business Journal, called Taliera is actually trying to resurrect dead or dying wine and spirits brands.
Started by J. Smoke Wallin, also the President of a technology company based in Indianapolis serving the wine industry called eSkye, Taliera recently pulled back from a “blank check” IPO due to “adverse market conditions.”
Basically, Wallin and some industry colleagues are trying to raise money in order to buy languishing brands and re-build them.
From the article in the Indianapolis Business Journal:
Taliera will focus on finding alcoholic beverage brands that your parents or grandparents once enjoyed, but that now languish. Wallin said regulations on alcohol advertising, particularly for liquor, make it much easier to reposition an older brand than to introduce a new one.
Interesting concept.
I’m not sure too many institutional investors (or individual investors) actually invest in an IPO based on the idea and only the idea of taking a sow’s ear and making silk but the idea has merit because there are some brands in wine that I think are ripe for re-marketing, particularly to younger generation steeped in nostalgia marketing.
From the article in the Indianapolis Business Journal:
Jonlee Andrews, a professor of marketing at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and director of IU’s Center for Brand Leadership, said there are many reasons why brands fall out of favor.
Sometimes they just don’t get enough attention or marketing money, and all it takes is a fresh idea to reinvigorate an established brand. Other times, the brand has developed a negative reputation that’s difficult to overcome. “Have consumers ever heard of it?” she asked. “Is it like Oldsmobile? Will it be hard to change the ‘Brand of your grandfather’ perception? Or is it like Ovaltine, and you just haven’t seen it in 30 years?”
Just two weeks ago, for example, California Coolers, an icon of the 80’s before being usurped by Bartles & Jaymes, was re-introduced to the market after a 15 year hiatus.
I would love to see brands that pre-date my drinking days, some of the icons of the 70’s like Italian Swiss Colony, Blue Nun, Cold Duck and Lancer’s picked up off the scrap heap and given a dose of cool.
Perhaps Taliera will do something interesting in the wine world, maybe not, regardless, having the opportunities come from Indiana is a good thing and certainly worthy of a toast.
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