If anybody has disproved the Woody Allen quote, “80 percent of success is showing up” it might be the Australian wine industry.
Despite selling cases of wine by the millions, they have been in something of a quagmire with oversupply and bad perception problems. Frankly speaking, I don’t pay much attention to wine from Australia, nor does the majority of U.S. wine blog readers. It’s simple, pay attention to the topics written about and in this regard Australian wine is pulling up the rear—right ahead of the “glassy sharpshooter.” Despite what I consider to be a benign disinterest from bloggers and many, many wine consumers, I do, however, have a finely tuned respect for their industry efforts which are organized, coherent and rooted in reality and action.
As an example, do a search on Google—any random wine related search for a phrase like “wine marketing” will do. After you sift through information from the 172 different factions from the U.S. wine industry you usually come across information from either a university from Australia or one of the less than a handful of unified Australian wine organizational bodies; they do contribute a good deal of thought leadership in viticulture and winemaking to the global marketplace.
By way of background, Australia is the #1 country in imported wine sales in the U.S. and despite an absolute dearth of export marketing sensibility in any price category above $10, the Aussies at least always seem to be on the same page with that lack of marketing moxie.
As a follow-up to their Strategy 2025 document published in 1996, a blueprint that chartered a course for the industry to achieve annual sales of $4.5 billion by the year 2025 and achieved an astounding 20 years early (thanks to a lil phenomenon called Yellowtail), they are now releasing “Directions 2025” – a blueprint for sustainable growth for their 7,000 + grape growers and 2,000-plus wine producers for the next 18 years.
Released by the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation (AWBC) and the Winemakers Federation of Australia, the “Directions 2025” is an industry-wide strategic framework for expanding Australia’s place in the global wine marketplace.
The greatest challenge the Aussies face in this market, in my estimation, is three-fold:
1) Yellowtail has been allowed to become synonymous with Australian wine
2) A complete lack of consumer awareness around wine being from “a sense of place,”
3) A stigma that Australian wine is for “New World” palates
Thankfully, through this “Directions 2025” planning, the Aussies are planning to alleviate all of these concerns.
Starting off with a brand segmentation strategy, they are going help wineries market around four distinct market “personalities” and then subsequently help wineries create brand and channel management strategies to work within those personality segments.
They are:
Brand Champions: Wines that appeal to a broad market base through accessibility ease of enjoyment and a strong premium brand message about product and country
Generation Next: Wines driven by innovation (marketing; product; packaging) that appeal to consumers who drink wine for social occasions and/or peer group affinity, rather than for wine attribute.
Regional Heroes: Wines from somewhere rather than wines from anywhere – adding and sustaining interest for consumers by fostering a clear association between region variety and/or style
Landmark Australia: High-profile, aspirational wines built on inherent quality and world-class reputation
And, in addition to the above, which are all segments that make sense they are officially dividing the country up into geographical appellation areas that ties into “Regional Heroes” segmentation, a focus that should be mission critical.
The areas include: Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. In doing so, they should be able to focus on cooler climate and less ripe varietals like Riesling and Pinot Grigio that can stem the Shiraz “fruit and oak and not much else” train of thought of consumers.
And, finally, they are developing a “Wine Australia” trust mark or a logo that will be placed on bottles—similar to importers whose stickering we’ve come to trust as a sign of quality.
Slowly, but surely, the Australian wine industry is addressing all of the ills that currently mark their wine climate—they are stratifying their wine industry to different price and quality markers; they are targeting that newly stratified industry to separate and distinct audiences; they are creating appellations. Mercifully, their wine glut is coming to a close, as well, allowing the business of growing to return to more healthy levels.
Overall, hat’s off the Australians for again leading the way in organization with Directions 2025. If nothing else the planning job they do in organizing different constituents is admirable and something that would never get off the ground in the states. And, with imports and competition growing at a steady pace, especially for domestic U.S. attention, it cannot be underestimated how important it is/was for them to get started immediately. I hope this helps them continue to muscle in the market place and hold off their Chilean and Argentinean competition, as well. Perhaps we’ll see dozens of Mollydookers, as we should, in the near future.