It’s no wonder wineries are confused and immobilized with fear of new marketing practices and technology. Primary learning opportunities at seminars frequently fall into the category of gobbledly-gook babble.
If you get the occasional whoosh of air blowing upward, it was probably somebody pumping sunshine up your skirt.
If you can’t baffle ‘em with brilliance, befuddle ‘em with b.s., I guess.
Thankfully, some people speak in a language you can understand.
We have the makings of a speaker-based Wine 2.0 Marketing Battle Royale. In one corner is Gary Vaynerchuk, Director of Operations from Winelibrary TV and in the other corner is Google’s Kevin Kells, Industry Development Director of Packaged Goods, a title that in and of itself is pretty darn confusing.
You see, both gave remarks recently to winery audiences around the topic of wine and technology—what is popularly referred to as “Wine 2.0.”
Vaynerchuk spoke at the recent Wine Industry Technology Symposium (WITS) in July and Kells spoke most recently at the Wine Industry Financial Symposium that took place on 9/17.
Again, just to make sure we’re clear, they were both speaking about the use of technology in wine marketing.
Kells had the following to say, as quoted and excerpted from a Wine Business Monthly article posted today:
Kells contrasted the marketing approach used in traditional media, in which marketers “zap” advertisements where they think consumers will be looking, with what he called the “computing cloud,” an abstract place containing “all information: websites and all the findable, usable and more mobile services people use online.”
“capturing engagement in that cloud” is a two-way exercise. The Internet is a database littered with people’s intentions, he explained, and “you want to over-surf” the sites that matter as much to the consumer as to you. “While the cloud is abstract, the users are real.”
Kells provided a “brand steward’s checklist” with questions brand managers should be asking, such as: Is my brand missing out on engagement opportunities? In response, Kells said it was “physically, mentally and structurally impossible to do marketing that is sight-based anymore. You need to get your brand stewards more in tune with the instrument-based market. Just because you don’t always see it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
Computing cloud? Brand steward’s checklist? Sight-based marketing? Instrument-based market?
Mind you, Kells was simply talking about using the Internet as a marketing asset for wineries.
Somewhere Jess Jackson was enjoying lunch and counting his money probably clairvoyantly picking up that somebody was blowing some sunshine up somebody’s skirt somewhere on the other side of the valley.
As a contrast to Kells, let’s take a look at a news report on Gary Vaynerchuk’s speech at the Wine Industry Technology Symposium (WITS) in July. Excerpts from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
The wine industry is missing a huge opportunity to build stronger relationships with its consumers using new technologies like Web videos and wine blogs.
That was the blunt message delivered to wine industry executives in Napa Tuesday by a young, outspoken New Jersey wine retailer who said the industry needs to embrace change or die.
“Ninety-nine percent of the people in the wine business are really blowing it,” said Gary Vaynerchuk, director of operations for the WineLibrary, a Springfield, N. J. wine store with a popular interactive Web site.
The wine industry for too long has catered to a handful of critics whose opinion means nothing to the average wine drinker, Vaynerchuk said. What matters far more to most people are the opinions of other consumers, and wineries need to wake up soon to this new reality, he said.
“Now everyone has got an opinion. Everyone’s got their two cents. Every single person you cross paths with in this industry — whether at an in-store tasting or a stock boy — you need to fear, and you need to embrace,” he said.
Vaynerchuk agreed. Wineries that are complacent and unwilling to engage new consumers in their own language will soon find themselves left behind.
“Get out of your comfort zone and embrace change,” he said. “If you are scared, you are going to lose, and losing sucks.”
Same message delivered differently.
Now, who would you take wine marketing advice from? More importantly, if you’re a consumer who would you buy wine from? Google or Winelibrary TV? My advice to wineries? Listen to the guy that uses the word “suck” and try if you must, but lightly parse the wisdom from anybody that uses the phrase “Brand Steward Checklist.”