Fighting Like Animals
Little
penguins, yellow tails, black swans, 3 blind moose and 4
emus; are we speaking about wine or Noah’s boat of biblical
fame? Nope, this is a shelf full of wine with the latest in
catchy labels. Something has always annoyed me a little bit
about this recent marketing trend and I’ve never been sure
why, until I started exploring it more to write this
article. One of the discoveries I made is that this really
isn’t a new marketing campaign but perhaps the revival of a
very old one.
Way back a few
hundred years ago, when the majority of the people were
illiterate, pubs would paint animals, among other things, on
their signs. Think of the Green Dragon, Black Rose and the
Bell in Hand, to name a few of our own historical Bostonian
bars. With these pictures on the signs, the illiterate
masses would know the name of the pub they liked the other
night because it had a picture of a Black Raven or some
other recognizable animal on the sign. Anyone else seeing a
correlation here?
How often have
you had your clients come to you with the following
statement: “I really cannot remember the name of the wine
but it had an ‘x’ on it or was this ‘color’ on the label.”
Is the average wine buyer that forgetful? They can remember
the name of the restaurant, what entree they ate, the level
of the service, even the chef’s name, but to remember the
name of the bottle of wine they really liked seems to be a
Final Jeopardy question that few succeed at. And really,
they don’t need to if what they’re looking for is something
slightly better than entry-level wine. As more and more
consumers are graduating from “value” wines to higher price
points, large-volume wine makers see an opportunity to ply
their trade: advertising. Sure, they make wine, but the
thing that really differentiates them, that gives them what
my MBA-wife calls “competitive advantage”, is marketing. And
market they do, spending lots of money on clever Madison
Avenue advertising consultants, on primo spots during
“comedy night done right” and on clever billboards.
Americans are more interested in wine than ever before, and
companies all the world over are stepping up with catchy
creatures, witty puns and vibrant visual hooks.
Then I realized
why I was annoyed. It’s really not these companies’ fault
that I’m so negative about this trend. It’s our fault. Yes,
I mean you and me, the wine professionals, reading and
writing this article. We have only ourselves to blame when
even otherwise sophisticated people such as Harvard-educated
physicists say, “I want that wine with a guy on a bicycle on
it; I think he has some bread under his arm.” We have
allowed ourselves to become complacent by letting the public
relation companies “educate” our clients instead of taking
responsibility as the people who really should be doing
it.
Is it easier to
send people to the wine with the cute animal on it instead
of making our client a more knowledgeable consumer? Sure it
is. We hand them exactly what they’re looking for and take
their money in two minutes flat. And it is these companies
that have the most money to spend on advertising who also
give the deepest deal if we floor stack their product or
offer it by the glass. Easy money.
Yet to what end?
How many of us are really in this for the almighty dollar
alone? We have a choice. We can ring up the increasing ranks
of automatons as our clients. Or we can use the draw of the
advertised animals to inspire the neo wine geeks who want to
learn, experience and experiment with wine from around the
world at different price levels. It can be only us to
catalyze this transformation and only if we’ve built a
relationship with them, as their trusted wine professional.
This takes time, persistence, and a never-ending passionate
quest to pass knowledge on.
The choice is
yours.
I know what mine is.
