Last year, when I was still writing Wine Brands, I had the pleasure to meet and interview Bob Wesley, who was then the wine manager of the upscale grocery store Lazy Acres in Santa Barbara. When talking to him and looking at the wines displayed in the store I was impressed by his original choices of wine and his vast knowledge of wines from all over the world.
Upon arriving to our summer place in beautiful and sunny Santa Barbara, we found on the table as a welcome gift by our friend a bottle of Tutu Pinot Grigio. The label featured a ballerina serigraphed directly on the bottle. This got a good laugh from us since our friend is a choregrapher. We loved the wink! And in the gift wrap we found the business card of Bob Wesley, now managing director of a new wine store, The Wine Hound! Surprise! Surprise!
Intrigued both by the label and the new store, we paid a little visit to Bob's new store. It is quite like Bob's style: a real "wine hound", Bob will taste hundreds of wines - even of the worst kind - to bring his customers only the best and present them with a carefully selected list of the best wines from the US, Europe, Australia, South America and any wine producing areas.
The store is backed by Vinesse, a company out of Westlake Village that runs the Web-based American Cellars Wine Club. Vinesse wanted to expand into bricks and mortar. They chose Bob Wesley to run this operation and we can only wish him the best of luck: Bob is doing a terrific job in the store.
While perusing The Wine Hound, I noticed a few new trends in labeling. I'll keep you posted on those trends as they seem quite interesting for the wine business after I talked to Bob and took a few pictures to ilustrate the evolution.
Showing posts with label labels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label labels. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Branding: Europe vs. USA
Branding a wine is a complex process depending on the wine, the targets, the location and many other factors. I happened to read the interviews of the European owner of the high-end wine brand, Sassicaia, selling around $1,000 a bottle, the Italian Piero Incisa della Rocchetta and the Gallo’s American Director of Fine Wine Marketing, Kristina Kelley.
Those interviews reveal the deep gap between American and European strategies, between American and European winemaking as well as the same passion for their product and the same respect for their consumers. Both wineries are family-owned: the Incisa della Roccheta family owned their land for several centuries and established a tradition of excellence; the Gallo family owned their fine Sonoma vineyards for a few decades and is now producing fine wines on very carefully farmed lands or with carefully selected grapes.
First difference between the two families: Piero, now in charge of the US market, is a member of the family when Kristina Kelley is an outsider. This difference is almost philosophical: "Sassicaia is a global company that's owned by a very small family—it's not a corporation. As for any family business, there's no one better than family who understands complexities and subtleties. No one understands the historical landscape and no one from outside of the family has such a deep understanding of the terroir. After 40 years (Incisa della Rocchetta's age), chances are you'll have a pretty good understanding of the product", said Incisa della Rochetta. For the interview, Kelley had to be backed by the winemaker of the brand, Eric Cinnamon.
Then branding strategies show how culture impacts the choice:need for new consumers for Rancho Zabaco, reinforcing links with existing consumers for Sassicaia. "Before establishing a new brand, need within a consumer segment is identified. We ask ourselves is there an opportunity within the marketplace? What do we view as trends? What are people drinking and what are they looking to explore or to discover? It always starts with the need in the marketplace and who is the targeted consumer", explained kristina Kelley for Rancho Zabaco. Incisa is facing a very different challenge: his brand is established, it's even a "cult wine", the production is sold out: "It's not because your product is sold out that you should not work. The large part of my work is to get together with collectors on a global scale and to taste the old and new vintages of Sassicaia, so that people can understand how the wine ages and evolves throughout the years. [...] My job is also to make sure that the old vintages of Sassicaia are served in the right order and coupled with the right dishes, drank in the right stemware. These things that might seem like irrelevant and annoying details to most, but they are pivotal to preserve the integrity of the brand."
What about re-positioning the brand along its cycle? Whether launched in 1996 like Rancho Zabaco or created centuries ago, a brand has a life of its own and needs to be re-positioned. That's where new brands and older brands find a common ground. Over the years, the image of sassicaia diluted: the sales sheets showed the same positive results but the family had the feeling the image didn't fit the quality of the wine. Piero Incisa went to work and met with the distributors, the consumers and the collectors. When Kelley had to reposition Rancho Zabaco, she had to go back to basics: "When the brand was introduced, it wasn’t just Zinfandel. It was also Chardonnay and Pinot Noir - a very different brand composition than exists today. From the marketing perspective, we learned that consumers gravitated toward the Zinfandel. It then became our decision to reposition the brand in 1999 to focus on Zinfandel because that’s what consumers were telling us. " For both brands, the consumer was the central point of the re-positioning.
Last but not least, what is the core in the process of branding a wine? For Incisa, it is "maintaining the integrity. This is not a job, it's a way of life, integrity towards the land, respect for your community, those are the things that people do not see. And passion, passion, passion, because without a consuming passion, it is very difficult to love what you do and to be successful at it." The process is a little trickier for a young brand but both Kelley and Cinammon echoed Incisa's statement in their own words: "We are trying to separate ourselves from the more whimsical, critter labels and focus on bringing forward our stylistic and appellation focus for the wines. For the past three years, we’ve focused on bringing sophistication to our packaging and separating ourselves from irreverent labeling, while keeping it fun. As our consumer base has matured and evolved, we want it to mature and evolve with Rancho Zabaco and not feel like they’ve outgrown the brand, said Kelley. "Rancho Zabaco has always been known for value, but today when consumers consider the brand, we want them to experience quality and value", Cinammon added.
There are cultural differences in branding wine on the two sides of the Atlantic but the sole business of branding is still at heart a world of passion for quality, style and value.
Those interviews reveal the deep gap between American and European strategies, between American and European winemaking as well as the same passion for their product and the same respect for their consumers. Both wineries are family-owned: the Incisa della Roccheta family owned their land for several centuries and established a tradition of excellence; the Gallo family owned their fine Sonoma vineyards for a few decades and is now producing fine wines on very carefully farmed lands or with carefully selected grapes.
First difference between the two families: Piero, now in charge of the US market, is a member of the family when Kristina Kelley is an outsider. This difference is almost philosophical: "Sassicaia is a global company that's owned by a very small family—it's not a corporation. As for any family business, there's no one better than family who understands complexities and subtleties. No one understands the historical landscape and no one from outside of the family has such a deep understanding of the terroir. After 40 years (Incisa della Rocchetta's age), chances are you'll have a pretty good understanding of the product", said Incisa della Rochetta. For the interview, Kelley had to be backed by the winemaker of the brand, Eric Cinnamon.
Then branding strategies show how culture impacts the choice:need for new consumers for Rancho Zabaco, reinforcing links with existing consumers for Sassicaia. "Before establishing a new brand, need within a consumer segment is identified. We ask ourselves is there an opportunity within the marketplace? What do we view as trends? What are people drinking and what are they looking to explore or to discover? It always starts with the need in the marketplace and who is the targeted consumer", explained kristina Kelley for Rancho Zabaco. Incisa is facing a very different challenge: his brand is established, it's even a "cult wine", the production is sold out: "It's not because your product is sold out that you should not work. The large part of my work is to get together with collectors on a global scale and to taste the old and new vintages of Sassicaia, so that people can understand how the wine ages and evolves throughout the years. [...] My job is also to make sure that the old vintages of Sassicaia are served in the right order and coupled with the right dishes, drank in the right stemware. These things that might seem like irrelevant and annoying details to most, but they are pivotal to preserve the integrity of the brand."
What about re-positioning the brand along its cycle? Whether launched in 1996 like Rancho Zabaco or created centuries ago, a brand has a life of its own and needs to be re-positioned. That's where new brands and older brands find a common ground. Over the years, the image of sassicaia diluted: the sales sheets showed the same positive results but the family had the feeling the image didn't fit the quality of the wine. Piero Incisa went to work and met with the distributors, the consumers and the collectors. When Kelley had to reposition Rancho Zabaco, she had to go back to basics: "When the brand was introduced, it wasn’t just Zinfandel. It was also Chardonnay and Pinot Noir - a very different brand composition than exists today. From the marketing perspective, we learned that consumers gravitated toward the Zinfandel. It then became our decision to reposition the brand in 1999 to focus on Zinfandel because that’s what consumers were telling us. " For both brands, the consumer was the central point of the re-positioning.
Last but not least, what is the core in the process of branding a wine? For Incisa, it is "maintaining the integrity. This is not a job, it's a way of life, integrity towards the land, respect for your community, those are the things that people do not see. And passion, passion, passion, because without a consuming passion, it is very difficult to love what you do and to be successful at it." The process is a little trickier for a young brand but both Kelley and Cinammon echoed Incisa's statement in their own words: "We are trying to separate ourselves from the more whimsical, critter labels and focus on bringing forward our stylistic and appellation focus for the wines. For the past three years, we’ve focused on bringing sophistication to our packaging and separating ourselves from irreverent labeling, while keeping it fun. As our consumer base has matured and evolved, we want it to mature and evolve with Rancho Zabaco and not feel like they’ve outgrown the brand, said Kelley. "Rancho Zabaco has always been known for value, but today when consumers consider the brand, we want them to experience quality and value", Cinammon added.
There are cultural differences in branding wine on the two sides of the Atlantic but the sole business of branding is still at heart a world of passion for quality, style and value.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Why do wine labels with animals work?
Do you remember my grumbling about meaningless wine labels? Three researchers from U. of Chicago, U. of Michigan and Yale U., seem to have proved me wrong in an article published in the Journal of Consumer (April 2008).
First, a study conducted by ACNielsen reported that nearly one out of five table-wines introduced on the US market in the last 3 years featured an animal on the label. Second, our three researchers conducted a series of tests that proved that consumers related better to a product they can strongly associate with themselves: if you love dogs, you'll choose a bottle with a dog on the label; if you like cats, ditto. Third, non sequitur labels have an other advantage over labels relating to the product: they are not shared by competitors - yet!
Source: Aparna A. Labbro, Ravi Dhar, Norbert Schawarz, "Of Frog Wines and Frowning Watches: Semantic, Perceptual Fluency, and Brand Evaluation", Journal of Consumer, April 2008.
First, a study conducted by ACNielsen reported that nearly one out of five table-wines introduced on the US market in the last 3 years featured an animal on the label. Second, our three researchers conducted a series of tests that proved that consumers related better to a product they can strongly associate with themselves: if you love dogs, you'll choose a bottle with a dog on the label; if you like cats, ditto. Third, non sequitur labels have an other advantage over labels relating to the product: they are not shared by competitors - yet!
Source: Aparna A. Labbro, Ravi Dhar, Norbert Schawarz, "Of Frog Wines and Frowning Watches: Semantic, Perceptual Fluency, and Brand Evaluation", Journal of Consumer, April 2008.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Following up on the tear-off tab of a label
You might remember the tear-off tab on a label mentioned a few days ago on this blog. I found the information on the dieline.com blog which had found it on the Noisy Decent Graphics blog, written by Ben Terret, a London graphic designer. In fact, Ben's thread is very interesting because it is followed by many comments. Enjoy the reading!
Friday, February 1, 2008
So tired of meaningless labels
Again labels are in the news. As I stated in "Wine Brands", labels are what customers see first when they browse the store shelves: kangaroos, dogs, frogs, rabbits and many animals attract the eye but what's in the bottle? Good question that some consumers don't ask themselves: when I was in the wine store of my friend Barbara Tyree, Under The Grape in Charlotte, N.C., a charming young woman walked in the store, started looking around and made a sudden and joyful move towards a bottle with a stylish "J" letter on the label. She didn't even look at the back label to have more information on the wine before moving to the cash register and asking: "Do you have 2 cases of that wine?" While she was waiting to be brought the cases, I asked what attracted her to that bottle: "The "J" on the label, of course! It our anniversary and our name is Jones. It's so great to have a wine with the initial of your name to serve to our friends tonight at our party!"
Got the picture? That's why my friend and wine journalist Robin Garr, founder of the site WineLoversPage.com titled his 30Second Wine Advisor Newsletter on January 30th, 2008: "Cute animal labels? Holy Cow!" Like me, like a lot of wine lovers, he's tired of cute animal labels or funny labels hiding poor quality wines. Does it mean an ugly black and white cow is appropriate for a wine label? Why would a winemaker from Washington call his Chardonnay - as good as it is and I trust Robin's taste - "Holy Cow" and design a cow on the label? To me it seems more appropriate to a dairy farm or a cheese store than a wine label!
Holy Cow! I'm so tired of meaningless or non related labels! Is it that difficult to design a label appropriate to the content of the bottle? Are we so sure it would impair the success of the wine? Let's think about it and come back to the topic when I'll be in a better mood!
Got the picture? That's why my friend and wine journalist Robin Garr, founder of the site WineLoversPage.com titled his 30Second Wine Advisor Newsletter on January 30th, 2008: "Cute animal labels? Holy Cow!" Like me, like a lot of wine lovers, he's tired of cute animal labels or funny labels hiding poor quality wines. Does it mean an ugly black and white cow is appropriate for a wine label? Why would a winemaker from Washington call his Chardonnay - as good as it is and I trust Robin's taste - "Holy Cow" and design a cow on the label? To me it seems more appropriate to a dairy farm or a cheese store than a wine label!
Holy Cow! I'm so tired of meaningless or non related labels! Is it that difficult to design a label appropriate to the content of the bottle? Are we so sure it would impair the success of the wine? Let's think about it and come back to the topic when I'll be in a better mood!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
