@jerry, Yes! Decant that Ars Epica!!! Its pretty tight but no need to hold onto that wine (unless you want to). good to see you on wine berserkers. Let’s taste some day soon.
Branding (I hate that word, but it’s really an all-encompassing gerund of the hell that is consumerism, so I am forced to use it.) is the study of product/packaging/marketing elements of a product that allows the manufacturer to place their product within certain consumer circles. You can pick up a $7 bottle of no-name shiraz and hold it up to a $7 bottle of yellow tail, and be able to sell the yellow tail simply through the label and the name because of the marketing, gimmickry, and label design. There’s a reason that a ton of Aussies started putting mascots on their wine after they found out that it sells, just like there’s a reason that people don’t want a wine with a screw top because they’re afraid of the message it’ll send to the people that they’re dining with.
For example in a different sector, Apple spent millions of dollars generating manufacturing technologies to reduce the fillet on the corners of the iPod case down as small as has been seen in the industry. The result was an exterior product packaging that was slick, smooth, heavier, and without the feel of part lines that other, easier to use and higher capacity mp3 players had. They then played up the visuals in ads, put product placement in the right circles (Skinny Girl Margarita anyone?) and created the right air of notoriety and elitism to garner huge profits. It all started with the packaging. If they didn’t have a product that FEELS like it’s worth more, it never would have taken off.
I’m doing a study for my store’s website currently, and packaging certainly is a big part of the wine business. If you know what certain people are looking for, then you can adjust your product accordingly, and if you want to expand your product into new markets you can change your product’s appearance and notoriety through ads and packaging to attract the type of consumer you want… though in the end, if you want to sustain your business, you have to have a quality product. A shame that most people don’t know quality wine.
I always go back to consumer packaged goods…wine is a CPG. So are skittles, Coca-Cola, little debbie snack cakes etc etc.
Rest assured that the people over at skittles have a team of people who spend all day, every day, worrying about their packaging…
Wine is the same way…if you are not constantly worried about your label and package, how it can be better, how it is being received in the market place, how it stacks up to the competition…you are doing yourself a serious disservice…
Labels and packaging are just as important as the juice in the bottle…
Importance is in the eye of the consumer. There’s a reason Franzia is the #1 selling wine.
Like Adelsheim. They have nice labels, some that feature women.
Just as an aside to this conversation, when I bring a bottle to dinner (as a guest at your home or at a restaurant), everyone expects the contents of said bottle to be good (since my non-geek friends think I know about wine).
As lame as that sounds. I will have to second that. Has happened to me on numerous occasions. If the winery we were visiting had dogs and kids of the winemaker around then it was even better.
Does anyone other than the consumer - the end user and purchaser of the product - matter?
A year ago when I was in Kona on the Big Island I stopped in a coffee shop that sold dozens of different local beans. I looked and looked around but really had no idea what to buy. So I picked the one that was in clear packaging (the rest weren’t) and was organic. It was different. It stood out. Did I buy the best one for the money? I doubt it. LOL
Amazingly enough, Ken Wright dropped this . . .
for this and its evil siblings.
I think they both suck in different ways, but the second one is worse.
I think the original is beautiful and classy. I call the second one “The Potato Famine Comes To Dachau”.
What’s worse is that Ken and Karen apparently commissioned additional pieces by the same artist and they each “adorn” a separate single-vineyard bottling.
FYI, The woman on the standard Pinot Noir label is Diana Lett, the late David Lett’s wife, done by Ginny Adelsheim in the early 80’s.