So, I am minding my own business, flipping through a People magazine at the local haircut emporium, when I see, nestled in between an article on the latest comings and goings of Nicole Ritchie (without baby) and the latest Britney meltdown, an ad for Welch’s grape juice that has a removable peel in which you are actually invited to LICK the magazine page for an approximated taste of grape juice.
Can you say interesting? Lickable ads. Who would have thought?
Fortunately (or, unfortunately) the magazine had already been through a bunch of other hands and whatever you are able to lick had been licked.
The back-story, as featured in a recent Wall Street Journal article, is that Welch’s worked with a vendor to put an approximation of the flavor of the grape juice in a flavor strip sealed within the magazine and presented in ad form.
Think Listerine breath strips affixed to a magazine page with a grape flavor and you get the gist.
Immediately, my mind is thinking about this as an opportunity with wine.
I wrote about wine and scent marketing (found here) some time back and anything that is pretty far out there on the edge in terms of real marketing, I find interesting. This qualifies.
There are some inherent drawbacks. Obviously, the first is that only one person can lick the ad. But, it certainly got me talking about Welch’s grape juice without licking, so there is tremendous value in that from a marketing perspective.
However, as a marketing possibility for wine you would have to say this has some real interesting possibilities.
You can already do scents for just about every scent there is. Related to wine, you need black pepper, no problem. Strawberry, yes. Fresh cut grass, absolutely. Any scent that is a flavor component in wine, you can find as purchasable scent for scent marketing. Yet, nobody has really seized the opportunity to translate that capability to wine marketing whereby you could break down the flavor components of your wine into some sort of scent-based promotional offering—either in the tasting room, online or in a magazine as an ad.
However, this lickable stuff might be different.
Can you imagine opening up Wine Spectator magazine and seeing an ad for the J. Lohr Merlot and having three lickable strips with flavor strips for redcurrant, chocolate and earth?
Do you think that might absolutely create some mental stickiness with somebody the next time they were in a restaurant gazing at a wine list?
Realistically speaking, nobody (read: nobody) in the wine industry would do a marketing tactic like flavor strips. It is too far out there, too much on the bleeding edge and not nearly safe enough. It seems like nobody does anything in the wine world until their neighbor does something, which, of course, creates a little bit of a problem in terms of progressiveness. Safe, yes. Progressive, no.
However, here’s some food for thought related to the world of wine:
Wine is one of the HOTTEST verticals in consumer-packaged goods. Hot, hot, hot. However, the wide gulf that exists between new people coming to wine and the enthusiasts who have always existed is primarily around experience and palate training.
Simply put, people that HAVE NOT undertaken wine as an avocation yet enjoy it as a beverage think wine snobs are wine snobs because they talk a bunch of gobbledly-gook about wine and wine flavors that does not make sense. In addition, the only way that it ever starts to make sense is to educate yourself and your palate, mostly by drinking wine, but you can also do so by scent and taste training. Gary V. at WineLibray TV gets this and is working his audience this way in 2008.
So, here’s the net: If the wine industry wants to curry favor with this new generation of wine drinkers, taking the lead on helping them train their sense of smell and taste is a fantastic way to build an incredible amount of brand equity. Maybe it’s not scent marketing, maybe it’s not taste marketing. Perhaps it’s not $300 Le Nez du Vin kits. Yet, the wine brand that cracks this code holds the keys.
Ignore it, or embrace it. Either way wineries are making a decision about the future of their business.
For Additional Reading:
Welch’s Salivates Over Lickable Ads
Marketing with Taste