Yesterday, the 2011 edition of Vinexpo opened in Bordeaux and Burgundy was the guest of honor of the ESC Dijon Institute of Wine Management conference. Three keynote speakers presented the success stories of their business or organization : Florence Ragonneau of the Bureau of Burgundy wines (BIVB), François Desperriers, founder with Aurélien Ibanez of BourgogneLive.com blog and Jean-David Camus, who manages the Albert Bichot Hospices de Beaune sale every year.

The BIVB is the “official” voice of Burgundy wines on all markets. Florence Ragonneau’s mission was to carry the image of Burgundy wines on the Net and all social media.  First of all, she launched a web site in 8 languages to reach the most important international markets. The site provides information targeted to professionals, journalists and bloggers, influencers and consumers as well as e-learning facilities. Then she took the BIVB on Facebook and created a strong community of about 2,500 “friends” around the Burgundy wines.

Jean-David Camus is a young entrepreneur who saw the strong possibilities of taking in the 21st century a 200-year old brand, Albert Bichot.  For various historical reasons, Bichot is one of the biggest buyers of wines of the Hospices de Beaune during the famous November auction sale. Camus gave the opportunity to consumers to get together to buy a barrel of the Hospices de Beaune wines: a barrel allows 48 people to buy each a 6-bottle case for a price between 30 to 70 euros a bottle. It puts the buy at a reasonable financial level for lovers of great Burgundy wines.  What is new is that the auction and the buy take place on the Internet: the prospective buyer registers on the dedicated site and agrees on a price (usually around 4,000 to 6,000 euros a barrel): if the barrel costs less during the auction, the buyer pays less. If the auction takes the price of the barrel over the agreed maximum, the sale does not take place. It is a wine-win deal for the Hospices and the consumer. To promote his action, Camus resorts to all available media: Twitter, Facebook, web site, links to blogs. The results are convincing: he brought over 1,500 new customers to Albert Bichot and sold several barrels of wines.

last but not least, François Desperriers told the amazing success story of Bourgogne-Live.com. Launched in January 2010 by a few “tweets” on Burgundy wines, Desperriers saw his audience grow because of the consumers’ interest in Burgundy wines. In March desperriers and Ibanze launched their blog, Bourgogne-Live.com. They were rapidly frustated by the lack of comments and of conversation. They then created a Facebook page where conversations regularly engaged on their blogs’ articles and videos. Meanwhile they also carried out links to news and other blogs they thought of interest to their community.

Those success stories put Burgundy wines on the digital map. Burgundy producers also got involved, helping to spread the word about their wines. By now, consumers would have to be very distracted to miss Burgundy on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and any other media. Enjoy!

Instead of looking back at 2010, I’d rather look forward to 2011.  Of course, I am not a guru and I will not try to predict in what shape the wine industry will be in 2011. But there are a few signs of what we might want to look at in the next few months: are there any specific trends we should keep watching?

The emerging markets, mostly China, were very much in the news lately. When in Shanghaï, I was amazed by the energy of the people and how fast China was catching up technologically. The wine business is a different story. A recent scandal about fraudulent and fake wines shook the international wine industry and put a certain damper on selling and buying wine in mainland China. The video of the Chinese authorities clashing down on trafikers was supposed to reassure the markets. Talking to my Chinese students gives me a more relaxed approach to the Chinese market. Young Chinese professionals are coming to Europe and the US to enroll in Wine MBAs programs or in tasting schools. They will go back to their country with a good knowledge of Western wines, will be able to teach the local wine consumers and become opinion leaders in the wine trade. The future of wine in China is bright.

My second line of thought for 2011 is on social media and blogging in the wine industry. Blogs are the basis of communication for a lot of wine professionals and consumers: producers, marketers, technicians, food lovers, wine lovers and many others.  They constitute the main stream of exchanges between people and are now relayed by social media. No blogger can even consider writing a post without having it relayed on Facebook and Twitter, thus allowing the conversation to be carried out on more open shores. Of course it makes the blogger’s work a lot more complex as he/she has to answer comments on the blog, on Facebook and follow the threads on Twitter.  Let’s not forget to mention the following of fellow bloggers who deserve attention for their brilliant articles.

Emerging markets and social media will get all my attention in 2011. I am absolutely certain that, in the Spring, I will have found many other more new trends to follow up and write about since the beauty of Internet is in its constant flow of innovation and novelty.

According to Seth Godin, “There is too much clutter … because we’ve branded ourselves to death.”.  The CMO should now be a “Chief Movement Officer”. “In short: don’t market — inspire, lead, tap into your brand’s passions and you’ll tap into consumers’ passions and build a small and committed following that will scale through word-of-mouth.”

Does this recommendation apply to wine brands? Wine brands usually try to build a large following. How does the “small and committed following” fit in? This type of following will become the leader of your (more or less) large community. One of the best examples of this kind of strategy is the Community page a fan of a brand can build on Facebook. Many brands are not mastering their Facebook page because they’d rather let their fans talk about them. It is the case of the champagne Krug, for example, with almost 10,000 fans talking freely about their favorite beverage. Whether you like it or you don’t does not really matter: the brand can always get back its brand name and start maintaining its own page.

Is it better for the brand? If there is a conversation between the fan and the brand, it is great. But unfortunately, most of the time, when the brand creates its own page, this is one of those long monologue on what they’re doing, what’s happening and how great they are. very few brands are good at engaging with their consumers. They don’t “tap in their brand’s passion”.

In spite of this rather poor communication strategy, according to Graham Holter, in the latest issue of Meininger’s IWB, “brands beat terroir”. His conclusion is the result of a Wine Intelligence recent research on how consumers perceive origins vs. brand. One of the most striking case is Lindemans: in 2006, the Australian brand Lindemans was converted to a multi-origin one. Lindemans is now 9th in the Nielsen list of top brands with sales growth for 2008-2009 of 11.1%. QED? Mostly. According to Wine Intelligence study that questioned 8,400 regular wine drinkers in eight countries (US, UK, Quebec, English-speaking Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland and Australia), the favorite brands were Yellow Tail (mostly in the US), Blossom Hill, Jacob’s Creek, Gallo Family Vineyards and Wolf Blass. More troubling, in most cases cases, consumers said they did not have a favorite brand. Does it mean that consumers see little difference between various brands?

I would consider this hypothesis as the sad sign of lack of interaction and engagement between the brand and the consumer. Can a wine drinker be passionate about a brand that tastes about the same as the next one and does not talk to him/her? Not really… We are branded to death but some brands are signing their death by standing out of the general conversation.

But what web site, what for and what use? My last post on “Does a winery need a web site?” generated interesting and well thought out comments from wine educators, winery owners and other readers.

First of all, it seems everybody thought a winery needed a web site. Some said a web site was the “brick and mortar” piece of their communication. I would call it a “click and mortar” but let’s not digress on semantics! The web site is usually seen as the place to send wine consumers, wine critics, educators and web users from Facebook, Twitter or any other social media to get information. I agree 100% on that point. But a web site can’t be “static” or it looses all its strength and usability. A “static” web site will lose visibility on any search engine if it is not regularly updated. If a once a year update is considered the norm, let’s forget about having a site. The site needs to be energized by news, tweets, videos and/or blog posts linked to social media.

Second, I didn’t get any comment on what kind of web site is needed. As for content, we usually see on most web sites a short presentation of the winery, the wines, a contact form and a news page (sometimes rather dated). It’s all good and well but what’s the point for the consumer? If a consumer knows and likes the wines, or if he heard about the wines from a friend or a forum/blog post, he’d like to be able to find and buy them. No information on the web site of the winery is no help. He’ll have to rely on the new search tools, like snooth.com, wine-searcher.com, cellar-tracker.com or cruvee.com. What about if he/she is not located in the country of the winery? What about if he/she is not familiar with those tools? All those questions are raised by the way most wineries’ web site are designed. They’re not consumer friendly. Most wineries design the site they want, not the site they need.

What I meant when I asked: “Does a winery need a web site?” was: if a winery has a web site, it has to be designed to help the consumer, not to look pretty or carry only information. A web site has to create a link between the winery and the consumer – through history, presentation of the team and description of the wines, of course – but also and mainly by helping the consumer to be a part of the life of the winery. Not only by giving him/her the way to buy the wine, but also to keep in touch with the winery and its team through the web site, the blog and all social media available. A web site has to address the consumers’ needs in order to fulfill its purpose. If it doesn’t, why invest in a web site?

For many years, the success of a communication strategy on the Web was measured by the traffic on the site or the click on a banner. It might not be still true. Because of the growing importance of social media, blogs and micro chats, it is more important for a winery to be present on the Net through all those channels.

I was talking to a winery manager a few weeks ago. He was complaining that all his actions on Facebook, Twitter and other social media didn’t bring much traffic to his web site. We looked at the mentions his winery was getting on the Net and we agreed it was more important to be talked about than to get traffic on the web site. Why is that? Consumers are all over the Internet. They might not keep in mind a specific brand. but when this brand’s name appears on the Net in their favorite blog or forum, or is mentioned on Twitter, it reminds them of the brand. Q.E.D!

What does it mean for a winery? It means… a lot of writing. It’s not an easy job when you are supposed at the same time to harvest, make the wines, sell them or present them at Pro-Wein or Vinexpo Hong Kong, to be also blogging, interfacing on Facebook, filming your latest event or chatting on Twitter. But it is worth the trouble. It is rewarding and a lot more efficient than a simple site.

In 1999, the Web was still considered an innovation in Europe. In France, 11,6% were connected; 100,000 adventurous people are managing their bank accounts on line; e-commerce brings 200,000 euros! It was also the time of the Internet boom: start-ups are getting millions from angels and investors. After two years of euphoria and craziness, it is the krach. But, in spite of that, one third of the French population was connected – mostly by cable. Amazon.com and ebay.com opened their French site. A healthy sign of confidence in the new economy! In 2004, 12 million French were on line, more than 50% connected by cable or high-speed. Apple launched its iTunes platform in France. In 2005, two years after the US, French people became addicted to blogs. 2 million French bloggers appeared almost over night! In 2006, advertising on line brought several million euros. In 2007, the iPhone became available in France. In 2009, over 32 million French people were connected; they were aware of Facebook and discovering Twitter.

Of course, France is not the most Internet friendly country. Regulation is the keyword for the French administration on connectivity, privacy, wine, advertising, e-commerce. In spite of all the restrictions, France is opening up to the 21st century. To look at the future, one has to look at the US. In the last ten years, I saw tremendous innovations coming from the US in the wine industry: services for wineries such as VinoVisit.com, search engine specifically tailored to wine like ablegrape.com, think tanks like VinTank.com, on line wineries such as Crushpad, new packaging. I also saw some innovations coming from Europe, like the unique code designed by adegga.com in Portugal.

New consumers generated new marketing strategies and new trends: women and Millennials, emerging countries. China and India became the new powers – first by the exponential number of wine consumers but mainly by their potential production.

Let’s not forget the incredible wine communities spread all over the Internet in already existing communities: wine groups in LinkedIn.com, pages or groups on Facebook, networks on Twitter now helped by the search. Individuals became leaders and carry the new trends to new countries and new consumers. It would be incredibly long and difficult to mention all the innovations but i’m really amazed by what happened on the Net in ten years.

I look forward to witnessing and being a modest part of the formidable innovations that will take place in the next ten years. Welcome to 2010!

Marketers are always on the look out for new consumers. They seem to have bypassed an interesting category, the Boomer Woman. What is so different between a Boomer Man and a Boomer Woman? A Boomer Woman just spent 20 or 25 years of her life building her career, child rearing and managing a home. Women feel like they now have a lot of time and a lot more money to devote to themselves. Their discretionary income improved a lot and they now have an important professional and personal network. They are connected, they have a Facebook account and sometimes are even on Twitter.

According to a recent study by VibrantNation’s “Well-Connected and Wired,” a quantitative study of 1000 Boomer women, “boomer women influence 80% of the $2.1 trillion in consumer goods purchases made by the boomer demographic each year — the largest of any segment of the population. Every day, 8 of 10 boomers are online, making them the largest online consumer.”

What does it mean for brands in general? Most of the time, those women don’t refer to advertising or television to make their buying decisions. They listen to other women of their kind, whether on line or off line. They are ready to indulge and pamper themselves. How can a wine brand tap in this market? Wine and food are very seductive and part of everyday life. Wine brands should appeal to the tastes and skills of those women. Pink labels and silly names? Why not? Wine can be fun. If behind the pink label and the silly name, there is a good wine, then there will be a happy consumer. This happy consumer will refer the brand to her peers and this piece of good news will go around. QED!

Saturday Oct. 31st was THE day of the EWBC conference. We actually worked hard going from one session to an other one, getting in touch with each other and working on important topics: what is a social wine brand? What is the impact of the social media on wine travel? How can wineries answer the challenging issues brought by social media? What kind of relationship can wineries and wine bloggers build? What is the future of the social media in the wine industry?

Of course none of us brought a definitive answer to any of those questions. But a few ideas emerged of the lively and sometimes contradictory discussions while some problems were clearly addressed. Wineries in Europe are not really set to receive consumers and travelers. With the rise of the social media, can they afford to turn away a consumer and risk their reputation through a blog post (Winery X could not receive me for a tasting: how rude!), a Tweet or aFacebook notification (Don’t go to winery X)?

The way we use social media was also widely discussed. Should we have a very large and indiscriminated circle of friends on Twitter and Facebook or be more selective? Should we all try to be Gary V. or be ourselves? Should we make money with our blog or social media use or should we be more “conservative”? The session on “Monetising the social media” did not provide THE answer but helped clarifying the various issues: a commercial endeavour (nakedwines.com, a retailer such as Bibendum Wines or a wine travel site) will make a commercial use of the social media and they’re right to do so. But what about a wine blogger? How should (s)he use his/her influence if (s)he has any?

Doug Cook, founder of Ablegrape.com and now head of the Twitter Search, comforted a more selective approach of search engine and developed what he called “search engine friendliness”. He gave us useful tips on how to get good search engine results: trying to get the widest traffic might not be the best strategy as the web visitors are not qualified or relevant to the topic of our site or blog.

After so many hours of work, we needed a nice break which Charles Metcalfe, the “wine singer”, provided through a tasting of amazing Portuguese wines. We then ended the day at the Eleven Restaurant on their beautiful terrace overlooking “Lisbon by night” and nibbling on their delicate food.

EWBC might be over technically today. But there are still many things that happened we’ll discuss in the next few days. EWBC is just the once a year meeting allowing us bloggers, wineries, Facebook and Twitter friends to meet face to face and talk about social media, blogging and wine but it keeps linking us over the year until the next conference. The discussion will keep going on through social media between us and next year, when we’ll meet again (hopefully), we’ll have even more topics to talk about.

Next week I’ll be on my way to the European Wine Bloggers Conference in Lisbon, Portugal. I’m one of the lucky one who’ll get to speak twice – once on Social Wine Brand and the second time on the Future of the Social Wine Brand.

But what is exactly the social wine brand? More and more winery owners are getting aware of the importance of social media to reach their consumers. They start writing blogs, create a page on Facebook and an account on Twitter. Those are great initiatives but they’re far from being as efficient as they could be. Indeed being part of a social media network means a lot more. It means interfacing with other wine professionals – even peers – and, of course, consumers. One of the weaknesses of the European wine network is the lack of communication and cooperation between winery owners and wine makers. Europe is more individualistic and competitive than its New World friends – i.e. Americans, Australians or South Americans. It impairs the launching of efficient networks. Indeed, networks require trust and sharing information and tips. Europeans are usually more retentive and don’t give away information or tip to an unknown party.

Is there a solution for this situation? Yes, we see in Europe innovative initiatives coming from wine makers who understood how working together (and not against each other) is important. The French “Mes Vignes” network is one of the best examples. Several winemakers from various French producing regions got together to offer wine lovers the opportunity to rent some vines for a year and create their own wine. In Cahors, the wine makers “banded” together to promote their wines in the US through blogs and buzz marketing. I’m sure other countries have many success stories they’ll share during this panel on social wine brands.

Blogging is certainly one of the best social media a winery can develop. But it is not enough to write posts on the state of the vine or how the wine is doing in the vat or in the barrel. The blog needs to bring value to the winery or the shop owner by creating a special relationship with the final consumer. The blogger needs to create links with other bloggers by sharing information, giving away ideas or starting interesting discussions. Topics can vary. I recently read a discussion on Facebook initiated by David Corey on : “would you rather buy high priced wine discounted or small production wines with consistenly fair pricing? let’s say $29 and under?” The question is a very good example of the kind of topics consumers are passionnate about: over 30 people answered and commented upon each other’s comments.

Don’t hesitate either to join professional networks such as OpenWineConsortium or LinkedIn with its Wine 2.0 or Wine Business section. Be proactive, create relationship and emotion around your brand. Comment on other people blogs, give away information to help somebody, get involved in discussions you are interested in – “just do it” or “think differently” but whatever you chose to do, do it in a spirit of cooperation and with an open mind.

A few weeks ago, The New Wine Consumer radio show featured the Academy of Wine Communications. Until then I must confess my ignorance of this somewhat illustrious Academy founded in 1994 “to encourage wine writers, the craft of wine writing, and wine coverage in the media”. Since then, the Academy evolved in a more sophisticated way. It now “provides its membership a means to network with colleagues; to meet key members of the media; hone and update their media lists; and learn classic and innovative marketing and public relations techniques”.

Being a member of numerous associations and/or professional organizations, I was amazed to see on the homepage of the Academy links to a Facebook page, to a LinkedIn page, to Twitter and ustream.tv. This is really an organization that strikes me as the prototype or – better – the archetype of what a web 2.0 association should be: the central network point for its members to network between themselves of course but also to have a link to the outside world where potential curstomers, business associates or partners are.

According to Michael Wangbickler, the Academy aims at becoming international and opening to new communications experts. With such an open and innovative strategy, it is sure the Academy has a bright future.