What is the purpose of a wine print advertisement?
I suppose it is to build brand familiarity among a targeted group of consumers (in the case of wine ads, us). I understand the premise, and in a world in which each advertising message existed on its own I would say great, a picture is worth a thousand words... that is an efficient form of messaging.
But that is not the case. We as consumers are besieged daily by 3000 advertising messages, up from 560 in 1971 (According to David Shenk in Data Smog
). 3000 messages per day means that we get 187 messages per waking hour or 3.125 messages per minute. Every day. We 21st centurians have built up certain modern survival skills which allow us to block out the ad-static and look for cues of inherent quality.
Here is where the importance of independent critics, message boards and bloggers comes in. When a modern consumer needs information or guidance, we naturally respond with knee-jerk cynicism at producer sponsored opinions. I would argue that the more informed a consumer is in a given field, the pickier they are about which information sources they will respond to. Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate doesn't have near the circulation of his competitors at The Wine Spectator, but his influence outweighs the spectator, largely I suspect because he shuns advertising. (The Wine Spectator on the other hand charges $35,000 for a full page color ad, and that doesn't jibe well with many consumers, hence the many suspicions about WS's impartiality.) Critics, message board posters and bloggers become trusted advisers and friends. We come to know their tastes and biases and respond by letting them influence our buying trends.
Everything that independents are, print ads are not. The majority of wines bought are chosen at the point of sale. We are drawn to labels, pricing, point-score-shelf-talkers and whether we get a fuzzy feeling from a given brand. Do print ads provide that fuzzy feeling? Does familiarity alone inspire trust? Or do we perceive the recommendations of those voices we hear and the scores we read as indications of inherent quality remote from the taint of marketing dollars?
If you see a print ad by a new brand, do you confer all of the attributes of its big dollar advertising brethren? Do you assume 200,000+ case production? Is there the suspicion that advertising means it can't stand on its own two feet? In our advertising barraged lives do we begin to assign traditional messaging the role of liar and cheat?
From Jack:
If you see a print ad by a new brand, do you confer all of
the attributes of its big dollar advertising brethren? Do you assume 200,000+
case production?" Yes, though only 50,000+ cases (i.e., in excess of a
half million bottles). And, what I'm really thinking is Industrial Wine. So,
these full page ads in wine, food, Robb Report, etc., magazines just tell me to
stay way clear of these wineries. But then again, these wines aren't really
targeted at wine geeks, but rather people who buy most of their wine at grocery
stores, right?
Me:
I got an email from the director of marketing for a large family owned winery here in California who writes:
Your thoughts re: advertising are of course valuable and insightful. I could go
on to speak about print advertising and other forms of visibility, their value,
impact, and more ad infinitum, but I’ll try to summarize my thoughts. As
competition for mindshare and shelf space skyrockets in the wine industry, large
producers are in a bit of a conundrum as to when, where, what to advertise—no
one wants to be considered overexposed, but the reality of economics and
competition requires that producers be visible, and print advertising is just
one vehicle. No one would argue your points about the nauseous number of
impressions we’re exposed to daily, and our need to worm our way through the
chaos to find the value in the messages.
That said, you’re right about
you not being the target audience for ads—passionate geeks such as yourself
receive impressions from a variety of sources both above and under the radar—and
brand-building happens in sublime and complex ways. I would encourage you to
continue to disregard ad input and its power to overwhelm your senses, and rely
on the senses that tell you a wine is great or not. But I hope you’ll try to put
aside your distaste for print ads and not let them color your perceptions about
particular wines?
You’ve got such a great thing going, Christian, with
Winberis.com. Thanks so much for sharing and educating my tech and wine
palate!!
Perhaps she's right and my head is in the sand as to how wine consumers behave... To a certain extent I have lost my "basic" consumer instincts though years in this business, but my knee jerk reactions to advertising are just that, knee jerk. I don't exercise control over gut reactions or first impressions and like Jack (above) feel more of a deterrent effect from print advertising.
I understand the need to get the brand out there, but there must be a way of having your cake and eating it too. There must be a way to bring in new consumers while building relationships with the jaded professionals and geeks. Perhaps blog based independent interviews would be good, warts and all portrayals of winery principals and key figures which would allow people to build those personal relationships. A forum like this one could be used to present both the standard messaging (declared as such) and accompanying interview. Or something.
Anyone else have a good idea?
Recent Comments