Retreat... Don't Re-Tweet

Prior to class today, I already thought managing social media for alcohol-related products and offerings had its pain-points.

At both Google Express and BloomThat (where I helped manage social media as parts of my roles), we sold wine from our platforms. I remember the social media restrictions being strict, specifically around age-gating.  It was crucial for those brands that we make it clear that we weren't endorsing any sort of under-age perusal of our offerings.  Many brands follow the instructions here for how to lead the appropriate people to alcohol products on our site.

However, class today opened my eyes to see how even more complex the rules can be, specifically when tied-house comes into the picture.

As we were discussing the tweet scenarios -- can I post about a great wine as BevMo if I'm not paid? What about if I as an individual do it? -- I started to wonder about re-tweets.  If they re-tweet, that's probably a problem, we said as a class.

When I was managing BloomThat's Twitter account in particular, whenever a customer would say something positive, we'd quickly re-tweet it and move on (we did it quickly so that we wouldn't fall behind as the tweets came in).  What if, I was wondering, a grocery store accidentally does something as small as a re-tweet... what's the severity of the punishment? That seems so easy to accidentally do.  What are the repercussions?

I did some digging for a real example of when this happened, and stumbled across this article, Tweets cause trouble for Sacramento-area wineries, breweries.  For the eight "culprits," they had the option to either confess or be suspended for 10 days: "ABC sent letters threatening to suspend their licenses for 10 days, or the businesses could admit to the offense and be placed on probation for one year." 

So not "we're shutting you down," but definitely more than just a light reminder. 

In this kind of environment, retreating certainly seems easier than re-tweeting.

Wine and Marijuana - Opportunity for Collaboration, not Competition?

Our class discussion about the budding cannabis industry's impact on the wine industry peaked my interest for a few different reasons. Several months ago, I called Washington State my home where recreational marijuana consumption was legal and had already found its way into the daily lives of those living in Seattle. Neighborhood pot shops could be found easily throughout the city, each offering a different experience ranging from hole-in-the-way to whimsical and honestly, fancy. As other states passed laws legalizing the sale of recreational marijuana, the buzz surrounding the cannabis industry has only continued to grow.

In class this evening, the notion that the wine industry is not a supporter of the cannabis industry makes logical sense from a weed as a substitute for wine perspective, but it was not a worry that I had heard about prior (even as a Washingtonian wine drinker). Of those people and friends I know that consume wine/beer/spirits and marijuana, it has never been a question of trade off between the two products. If anything, my friends often saw the products as complimentary. Yes, maybe sometimes they would smoke a joint as a opposed to having another glass of wine but often, it was the opposite. A joint might lead to another drink or visa versa.

So, I did some digging after class and stumbled upon this NYT article on the matter: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/dining/wine-marijuana-cannabis-industry.html
The article highlights some of the similarities between wine and marijuana, "like wine, marijuana is an agricultural product, and where it is grown can determine its character.". The piece goes on to mention that labor might be a place for competition between the two industries but that collaboration is a more likely scenario. I imagine that we will not see any of the well-established, large, family-owned wineries going into the cannabis industry, but it might be interesting to see if any new-world wines experiment in that direction.

Red obsession

Last week's case of Domaines Barons de Rothschild referenced its expansion into the Chinese market. With the rapid economics development in the past decades, China has become one of the biggest importers of wines from the Bordeaux region of France. The red obsession is undeniable!

Among Latour, Mouton-Rothschild, and many other fine Bordeaux wines available in China is Lafite. Lafite is unambiguously the synonym word for luxury Bordeaux wine in China and a pop culture symbol of 'social status' and 'power'. The unparalleled marketing success of Lafite in China is easily proven as HK mobster films and Mainland Chinese TV shows frequently feature a bottle of Lafite in the fine dining scenes (see screenshots).

What makes Lafite truly stand out compared to other Premier Cru? The legendary vintage years (e.g., 1870. year of comet) combined with the low volume makes Lafite 'investment grade' and sought after in secondary market. In addition, my hypothesis is that 'Lafite' is phonetically an easier word for Chinese consumers to pronounce,  in contrast to other long French names. This unique advantage comes in handy for its branding success in the Chinese market.

Marketing as a Key Differentiator

Although I have not worked in the wine industry directly, I led the GSB Luxe Trek this year and worked at AB InBev last summer - through my experience in luxury and alcohol, my hypothesis is that marketing is the way to differentiate as a winery in an overcrowded space.

Over the summer, we were testing consumer appetite for dark beer. We poured the same beer (Guinness) into 4 different glasses and created elaborate brand stories and moodboards for each, spanning from established beer to exotic. We conducted this test with over 30+ subjects in our target demographic and not a single subject realized that each glass contained the same beer. They were so carried away by the brand story that they were incapable of distinguishing variation in taste. For this reason, I believe that consumers derive a sense of identity from the brands they consume based on labels, not based on flavor.

Similarly with Inniskillin or Wente wines, the brand story and history is key to delighting customers, although there are 1000+ competitors in the space. This explains why Christine Wente focused on the history of the winery and her family. This begs the question: how you get consumers' attention?

These are some marketing-based developments that I think are exciting:

• Experiences. Clos19 is LVMH's e-commerce platform for wine experiences - this platform showcases experiences that are giftable associated to wine and spirits
• Women. For beer, at least, off-trade is growing. Women own the share of wallet in the home and as a whole feel alienated by beer companies. Communicating with women effectively is key to growth in wine.
• Health Tracking. More alcohol content, fewer calories.

Grow Big or Grow Home

Last week’s theme seemed to be tradition: between the historic story of the Rothschild family and our discussion of the Wente winery, I began to think about the tension between maintaining tradition and developing an ambition of growth. At one point in her presentation, Christine made a passing comment about preferring to support mid-size family wineries over the big guys. I then raised my hand and asked whether any of the family wineries had ambitions of getting acquired, and she had trouble thinking of any examples.

Do these companies just run as lifestyle brands and ways to employ family members, or do they actually aim to be profitable in an ambitious way?

The Rothschild story obviously represented the latter category, maintaining huge growth globally throughout the decades. I’m curious: what differentiates the brands that aim to grow like Rothschild from the moderate family companies like Wente?

I’m also curious about the intra-industry perception: how do the big guys perceive the small guys, and vice versa?

I’m also curious about consumer perception: in the same way that farm to table food made its way in the 1970’s and microbreweries became popular in the 1980’s, there are now so many smaller wineries across the country. There is so much consumer consciousness about what we eat (think buzzwords like local, sustainable, etc)—are people also thinking this way about the wine they drink?

I’m also curious about why people will buy a bottle for the first time. I hypothesize that major contributing factors include: the label, price, vague guidance from whomever is selling the products, and maybe some previous knowledge or conceptions. Since the vast majority of consumers are unknowledgeable when it comes to what they drink, I’m keen to learn tactics for getting someone to purchase a new brand for the first time. How do folks like the Wente family, who don’t have the deep pockets or advertising budgets of the big distributor brands, reach consumers?