In wine is the truth of the brand
Mass, market and marketing are the pillars of successful wine brands
Mass, market and marketing are the pillars of successful wine brandsBy Chandra KurtWines also need their brand in order to survive on the world market. The branding of wines has become fashionable. Of course, winegrowers are not always at the origin of the brand, and consumers determine its value even less. Intermediaries are becoming increasingly dominant in the wine business.
What do Gaja, Gallo and Penfolds have in common with Armani, Mitsubishi and Nike? Spontaneously you would think: nothing. Except that they are internationally renowned companies. Although not all of the names mentioned are at home in the wine business, they enjoy the status of a brand. They give the buyer a guarantee for the product and a means of identification. They also give them the certainty that they can rely on the quality of what they are buying, regardless of the price they pay. Brands can be found in every price category, and branded wines are no exception.
Nevertheless. Weinbrands do not live on air and love alone. They need to be nourished. And vigorously at that. So it is above all investments in marketing and advertising that make a wine brand a reality. And investments on a grand scale. Because the image of a brand is primarily lived out by the people who buy it, not by those who create it.
In other words, their everyday lives are enriched by the artificially created charisma of a label association. And so successful wine brands cover the needs and moods of their buyers from A to Z. From the packaging to the labeling and the philosophy of the wine house.
The actual taste of the purchased grape juice almost plays a subordinate role. Wine brandies can originate from a fictitious or real story. They can either be the fruit of a long family tradition or the product of a gifted storyteller, such as Californian winemaker Robert Mondavi.
A closed wine is like Aladdin in the magic lamp
The name Mondavi in particular is an indestructible status symbol for the Californian wine industry. Thousands of wine freaks and amateur corkers travel to California's Napa Valley year after year to discover the footsteps of Robert Mondavi and breathe in some pioneering air. Why? Because he keeps telling them stories with his wines. In contrast to European winemakers, he never made a secret of the wine and its production. He allowed and still allows consumers to share in his creations. True to the motto: you can make anything that tells a good story.
It is well known that for most wine drinkers, wine has a utilitarian character. It is more than just a liquid to be enjoyed with a meal or with friends. However, wine is less essential to our everyday lives than the washing power of a new washing powder or the brightness of a light bulb. As a rule, a bottle is opened for pure pleasure, whether at home, in a restaurant or in the great outdoors.
For this reason, we hope to experience a similar effect when uncorking as Aladdin did when cleaning the magic lamp. Entering a new dimension of experience in which one's own imagination can and must be fully lived out. And this requires the magical power of Weinbrands.
A power that, surprisingly, can be realized again and again. Or is there a tangible explanation for why everyone feels flattered and particularly honored when they enjoy a glass of Gajas Barbaresco? It is not the price, which in this case is very high, but not unaffordable. Nor is it the rarity of the bottle, but rather the charisma that it and its creator radiate. They convey the energy of constant success. It is clear that this desirable feeling costs something. But this no longer has much to do with taste and grape varieties.
Another example: While Angelo Gaja is a real person who carries his brand status into the future with Italian ease, another brand is fighting for the favor of his followers. We are talking about Bordeaux. For decades, this French wine region was regarded as the pinnacle of wine creation and the owner of old Bordeaux as an absolute wine connoisseur. A status that has lost much of its stability today.
The reason for this breach of loyalty is not the competition, but the company's own overestimation and disregard for its customers. Because although people generally remain loyal to a brand for years, the price-performance ratio must not fall out of balance.
Image corrections are not easy to accomplish
This is exactly what has happened in Bordeaux in recent years. Without thinking about their buyers, the individual châteaux have driven up their bottle prices without offering more in return. Both in terms of quality and image.
Correcting this imbalance is now more than a difficult undertaking. On the one hand, the Bordelais cannot suddenly come up with new brands; on the other hand, more and more brandies from the New World are flooding onto our market, which hit the nerve of the times in terms of price and taste.
Similar to wine brands, sales outlets are also branded. The clear definition of the product range plays a central role here. The Zurich wine shop Bindella is not sought out for its champagne selection, but for its Italian dominance. Names such as Sassicaia, Tignanello and Solaia are directly associated with this.
Landolt, Zweifel and the Zürcher Staatskellerei have made a name for themselves above all with their own local bottlings, and with the selection of wines from Beat Caduff's Vinothek zum Wohlsein, one can confidently assume that every bottle has helped the Grisons restaurateur to feel good.
Brand building shifts to the intermediaries
In the future, resellers will decide what a brand is anyway. And not the producers, as consumers might wrongly assume. In Switzerland, around 70 percent of the wine consumed each year is already bought in department stores or from wholesalers. That's 200 million liters. And the trend is rising.
The number of brands on the department store shelves is also increasing. The greater the choice, the more difficult the decision. You need to know too much to make the right choice. A brand, on the other hand, guarantees the right decision. It is suitable for the masses. It is therefore logical that every price category, every wine region and every type of wine has its own brand.
Brand opponents fear that the cultivation of individual brands suppresses the natural development of wine culture. However, it is not the brand alone that is driving a large number of individual winegrowers to ruin, but a nationally calibrated taste. Fashionable wines and drinking trends are much more dangerous than the label of a winery. Brands do not stop consumer interest.
On the contrary. They have the astonishing gift of arousing interest in something that, on the one hand, gathers a multitude of equivalent competitors around it and, on the other, flows down the throat purely for pleasure. Unlike clothing brands, wine brands prompt consumers to take action. People buy books about the wine region or even go there by car. And so something that has been artificially brought to life for sales purposes suddenly becomes alive and tangible. This would hardly be possible without the magical energy of a brand.
As we all know, there is no trend without a counter-trend. And
The steady increase in global brands is once again creating
There is also room for local heroes. In other words, wines that only find a sales channel in their home country or a geographically limited environment. It is ultimately thanks to these bottlings that wine regions around the world retain individual niches and do not degenerate into uniformity.
Although advertising texts that accompany a brand usually emphasize the individual character of the product, they can never give it exactly that. Brand automatically means mass, market and marketing.
What do Gaja, Gallo and Penfolds have in common with Armani, Mitsubishi and Nike? Spontaneously you would think: nothing. Except that they are internationally renowned companies. Although not all of the names mentioned are at home in the wine business, they enjoy the status of a brand. They give the buyer a guarantee for the product and a means of identification. They also give them the certainty that they can rely on the quality of what they are buying, regardless of the price they pay. Brands can be found in every price category, and branded wines are no exception.
Nevertheless. Weinbrands do not live on air and love alone. They need to be nourished. And vigorously at that. So it is above all investments in marketing and advertising that make a wine brand a reality. And investments on a grand scale. Because the image of a brand is primarily lived out by the people who buy it, not by those who create it.
In other words, their everyday lives are enriched by the artificially created charisma of a label association. And so successful wine brands cover the needs and moods of their buyers from A to Z. From the packaging to the labeling and the philosophy of the wine house.
The actual taste of the purchased grape juice almost plays a subordinate role. Wine brandies can originate from a fictitious or real story. They can either be the fruit of a long family tradition or the product of a gifted storyteller, such as Californian winemaker Robert Mondavi.
A closed wine is like Aladdin in the magic lamp
The name Mondavi in particular is an indestructible status symbol for the Californian wine industry. Thousands of wine freaks and amateur corkers travel to California's Napa Valley year after year to discover the footsteps of Robert Mondavi and breathe in some pioneering air. Why? Because he keeps telling them stories with his wines. In contrast to European winemakers, he never made a secret of the wine and its production. He allowed and still allows consumers to share in his creations. True to the motto: you can make anything that tells a good story.
It is well known that for most wine drinkers, wine has a utilitarian character. It is more than just a liquid to be enjoyed with a meal or with friends. However, wine is less essential to our everyday lives than the washing power of a new washing powder or the brightness of a light bulb. As a rule, a bottle is opened for pure pleasure, whether at home, in a restaurant or in the great outdoors.
For this reason, we hope to experience a similar effect when uncorking as Aladdin did when cleaning the magic lamp. Entering a new dimension of experience in which one's own imagination can and must be fully lived out. And this requires the magical power of Weinbrands.
A power that, surprisingly, can be realized again and again. Or is there a tangible explanation for why everyone feels flattered and particularly honored when they enjoy a glass of Gajas Barbaresco? It is not the price, which in this case is very high, but not unaffordable. Nor is it the rarity of the bottle, but rather the charisma that it and its creator radiate. They convey the energy of constant success. It is clear that this desirable feeling costs something. But this no longer has much to do with taste and grape varieties.
Another example: While Angelo Gaja is a real person who carries his brand status into the future with Italian ease, another brand is fighting for the favor of his followers. We are talking about Bordeaux. For decades, this French wine region was regarded as the pinnacle of wine creation and the owner of old Bordeaux as an absolute wine connoisseur. A status that has lost much of its stability today.
The reason for this breach of loyalty is not the competition, but the company's own overestimation and disregard for its customers. Because although people generally remain loyal to a brand for years, the price-performance ratio must not fall out of balance.
Image corrections are not easy to accomplish
This is exactly what has happened in Bordeaux in recent years. Without thinking about their buyers, the individual châteaux have driven up their bottle prices without offering more in return. Both in terms of quality and image.
Correcting this imbalance is now more than a difficult undertaking. On the one hand, the Bordelais cannot suddenly come up with new brands; on the other hand, more and more brandies from the New World are flooding onto our market, which hit the nerve of the times in terms of price and taste.
Similar to wine brands, sales outlets are also branded. The clear definition of the product range plays a central role here. The Zurich wine shop Bindella is not sought out for its champagne selection, but for its Italian dominance. Names such as Sassicaia, Tignanello and Solaia are directly associated with this.
Landolt, Zweifel and the Zürcher Staatskellerei have made a name for themselves above all with their own local bottlings, and with the selection of wines from Beat Caduff's Vinothek zum Wohlsein, one can confidently assume that every bottle has helped the Grisons restaurateur to feel good.
Brand building shifts to the intermediaries
In the future, resellers will decide what a brand is anyway. And not the producers, as consumers might wrongly assume. In Switzerland, around 70 percent of the wine consumed each year is already bought in department stores or from wholesalers. That's 200 million liters. And the trend is rising.
The number of brands on the department store shelves is also increasing. The greater the choice, the more difficult the decision. You need to know too much to make the right choice. A brand, on the other hand, guarantees the right decision. It is suitable for the masses. It is therefore logical that every price category, every wine region and every type of wine has its own brand.
Brand opponents fear that the cultivation of individual brands suppresses the natural development of wine culture. However, it is not the brand alone that is driving a large number of individual winegrowers to ruin, but a nationally calibrated taste. Fashionable wines and drinking trends are much more dangerous than the label of a winery. Brands do not stop consumer interest.
On the contrary. They have the astonishing gift of arousing interest in something that, on the one hand, gathers a multitude of equivalent competitors around it and, on the other, flows down the throat purely for pleasure. Unlike clothing brands, wine brands prompt consumers to take action. People buy books about the wine region or even go there by car. And so something that has been artificially brought to life for sales purposes suddenly becomes alive and tangible. This would hardly be possible without the magical energy of a brand.
As we all know, there is no trend without a counter-trend. And
The steady increase in global brands is once again creating
There is also room for local heroes. In other words, wines that only find a sales channel in their home country or a geographically limited environment. It is ultimately thanks to these bottlings that wine regions around the world retain individual niches and do not degenerate into uniformity.
Although advertising texts that accompany a brand usually emphasize the individual character of the product, they can never give it exactly that. Brand automatically means mass, market and marketing.
