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March 24 2006

Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice—Cluetrain Ma

The Derision Decision. Pt 2 of 4

The Emperor of Wine

I’d like to suggest that in the consumer lifecycle there isalways a point in time when our champions become our scapegoats … when ourfavorite son’s unwittingly take on the black hat; the point at whichpopularity, widespread popularity, turns against you and you become the objectof scorn.

This is frequently seen in the music—Hootie and theBlowfish, Alanis Morrisette and even Britney Spears have gone from publicdarlings to the close-out bin.

Robert Parker, esteemed wine critic, tastemaker and titan ofthe industry for better then 20 years seems to be experiencing his own versionof the derision decision.

This phenomena can’t be isolated to a single event—thedocumentary Mondovino, the influence he wields in sell-thru with consumers, anda thirsty new public that doesn’t know who he is, and nor do they care.

This from the New York Times on March 22^nd:

It has been a difficult couple of years for Robert M. Parker Jr., the winewriter who has famously been labeled the most influential critic of any kind inthe world. Though Mr. Parker has gotten used to living with a big fat targetpainted on his back, the most recent series of attacks was especially gallingto him.

Jonathan Nossiter’s documentary "Mondovino," released in the United States in 2005, juxtaposed Mr. Parker with aBurger King sign and portrayed him as an emblem of opulent globalized wine andan enemy of diversity, terroir and nuance. A 2005 biography, "The Emperorof Wine" by Elin McCoy (Ecco), expressed concern about a world dominatedby "the tyranny of one palate."

In this article on Decanter.com on March 23rd, Parker had this to say:

‘People who are leaders in any field are copied,’ he said. ‘There’s a reasonwhy every wine newsletter tends to look like mine. They see someone who’s beensuccessful, so they sort of copy the same ideas.’’When somebody wants to write an article attacking a scoring system or theinfluence of wine writers, who’s right in the cross hairs? It’s me,’ he said.

Parker went on to say that his palate was much more complex than the’simplistic view’ that he likes big, extracted, so-called fruit-bomb stylewines and rates them highly in tastings.

Despite his complaints, the wine critic, who publishes his bimonthlynewsletter, The Wine Advocate, also boasted of his success.

Or this from MSNBC.com from the summer of 2005:

It is hard to drink wine without running into RobertParker.

With his often-imitated gradingsystem, Parker is indisputably the world’s most powerful wine critic. Hisinfluence within the wine industry is akin to Alan Greenspan’s sway overfinancial markets: When Parker talks, wine people tend to listen.

With the wine tiger eatingits young and a new, young generation embodied as the gaping maw with no regardfor hidebound tradition, who is going to step into the fray and become thevoice that connects with other humans that speak a different language?

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March 24 2006

Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice—Cluetrain Ma

Part 1 of 4

The most intrepid of travelers felt intimidated, nervous even,the first time they ventured to a country where their native and only tongue, English,was not the primary language spoken.

Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, and The Wine Advocate havea combined subscriber base of less than 2 million people, but there are over 25million people nationally that drink wine at least once a week—making up a fastgrowing group of consumers called “Core” wine drinkers.

Simple math indicates that just 8% of serious wine consumersread magazines that largely drive the marketing of the U.S. wine industry. Authors Kirby Moulton andJames Lapsley, in their book, Successful Wine Marketing say, “(Wineries) are facinga market where 80% of consumers are waiting for an efficient and relevantmessage.”

That quote is taken from their book published in 2001—five yearsago. In that time, what have we foundout? Generation Y, a generationalsegment that represents 70 million people has only just begun to exhibit thelong-term consumption habits that will shape our consumable society for atleast the next 10-20 years. Oh, and bythe way, according to Wine Market Council research 39% of them are drinkingwine—most of them coming online as “Core” wine drinkers.

Everyday a new generation of wine drinkers is accepting wineas a beverage of choice, yet their native tongue doesn’t speak the language of “wine.”

And, yet, wineries are still facing a market where 80% ofconsumers (and growing) are waiting for an efficient and relevant message.

The challenge is, the new generation, Generation Y, theso-called Millenials, is different. They’rewired. They are agent provocateur s. Theyhave grown up consuming media since birth.

In my estimation, there are at least three converging trendsthat are all interrelated to how people interact with and want to interact withwine i.e. how wine media and marketers don’t connect with wine consumers—at retail,or elsewhere—essentially how the voice of the wine marketing isn’t human, atleast in the context of the human on the receiving end.

1) TheDerision Decision

2) Barbariansat the Gate

3) Anew lingua franca

Each of these intersect--the old guard is being challenged, a younger set of customers challenge authority and the way we buy; there is a new langugage being spoken.

In order--at least in the world of wine--for humans to have a conversation that sounds human somethings got to give.

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March 15 2006

Markets Consist of Human Beings, Not Demographic Sectors--Cluetrain Manifesto #2

As a card-carrying member of the corporate drone life, I’mused to the fact that Dilbert resonates deeply, and frequently, and the notionthat a corporate project isn’t a project until it has a snappy name—becauseotherwise intelligible folks can’t grasp a project unless it’s called the“something, something.” Usually this isa descriptor for Sr. Manager’s so they can succinctly take credit for and referto the project when speaking to other Sr. Manager’s as an indication of thesuperior progress he/she is making in resolving some customer or company ill inhis/her department.

Typically, the project has a strain of relativity to theissues at hand, and may speak to some larger societal aspect that we can draw aconnection to.

Frequently, the success of the project doesn’t matter asmuch as how much internal and external P.R. was generated. Perception is reality so issue a pressrelease.

Constellation Wines, the world’s largest wine producer,published a research study in the Fall called Project Genome, one the largestresearch studies ever conducted in the wine industry. Conducted in conjunction with Copernicus Marketing & Consulting(Who else would Constellation work with then Copernicus?), the study breaks outwine consumers into six segments. Asthe press release mentions, just as we are trying to map DNA, they are tryingto map wine buyers purchasing DNA.

The six segments of wine buyers are listed as:

Enthusiast:
12%of the population

Image Seeker:
20% of the population

Savvy Shopper:
15%of the population

Traditionalist:
16% of the population

Satisfied Sipper:
14%of the population

Overwhelmed:
23% of the population

You can read the entire summary powerpoint, press releaseand other materials here:

On the whole, it’s hard to discount this research as themethodology appears to be sound. And,while this may be the largest research study conducted, it doesn’t appear tobreak any new ground in categorizing wine drinkers then what has been conductedpreviously—just on a larger scale.

And, ultimately, what Constellation states as their goal forthe project is to help retailers and restaranteurs improve their product mixbased on their population of customers from the above category.

Here’s where I diverge on this research and why, ultimately,I believe this will be a project that looks good on the resume, but neveramounted to any seismic change.

Constellation wants the change to happen down the value chainwith retailers and restaurants—helping them to sell through more wine, moreeffectively. In essence, they areplaying into and supporting the growing category management function that saysthat the right product at the right place at the right time will sell through.

Put the onus on the retailer to raise their game.

First, the research doesn’t address Generation Y, atall. They don’t fit into any categoryidentified cleanly, and Constellation seems to have played into the currentmarket with Baby-Boomer’s as their chief target to address.

Here’s the rub on both customer fronts, consumersincreasingly eschew modern marketing tactics and increasingly give credence toviral, or word-of-mouth influence models—and actually steer away from packagedmarketing, typical of what a Constellation may do in the channel for itswine.

Secondarily, and most importantly, customers are nowmulti-channel shoppers—meaning they purchase from numerous stores. Just as Constellation publishes thisresearch, it’s highly likely that their so-called segments are dodging thesupermarket and going to buy wine elsewhere in an affinity-based manner—statusseeking. So, they can help asupermarket reach a traditionalist, who has really just decided to buy produceat the store and then head to the wine shop to buy wine for dinner because theyaspire to be an image seeker.

How the hell do you manage that?

The other thing that this research naively doesn’t addressis the entire state of the wine industry and the fact that there is an absolutepreponderance of wine labels and the fact that virtually all wine purchasedecisions are made at the point of purchase?

Seriously, how do you address the “savvy shopper” thatdoesn’t know what she wants and is demographically out of her element shoppingat a place that may not mesh with her socio-economic status?

The answer is, you don’t and can’t.

The real answer is there isn’t a wine shop that exists thatsells wine the way people want to buy wine—in my estimation. And, that is, play to the affinityaspect. What does this wine do forme—what’s the story; the story of the winery, the story of the brand, how doesthe label grab me? Is the merchandisingsomething that tells me something I didn’t know, and is it organically createdor slick and “produced”

The other day we talked about winery tasting rooms and whywine absolutely fly’s through the tasting room—it’s because people areassociating the wine with the experience, to be shared now and later as thewine is enjoyed.

Taking the story into retail and restaurants, treatingpeople as individuals whose needs and whims change constantly and providingthem something to identify with will ultimately be a greater contributor tosuccess then helping get Rex Goliath into Publix because you know thisdemographic base shops there. They may,but they’re also down the road at the Costco looking for a perceived gem thatoffers something compelling in the form of a story—across all demographicboundaries.

Markets do consist of human beings and ultimately,Constellation is missing a huge opportunity if they do not enable their channelcustomers to become better in-store marketers—for all people and the commonthreads that links us all. This isabout selling wine the way people want to buy and not the way that a companywants to sell i.e. taking the approach of market disciplinarian with having theperceived right product at the right place because usually it will be wrong.

To paraphrase a Walt Disney quote, he was asked if he wasafraid people would copy all of his ideas, and he said “Those are last yearsideas, we’re working on next year’s ideas.”

Wine marketers need to start working on next years ideas.

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March 5 2006

Markets are Conversations--Cluetrain Manifesto #1

This is the first of 95 posts that I hope will take the theses of The Cluetrain Manifesto and tie it back to the world of wine and the coming wine boom that will be sustained by the coming of age and maturation of Generation X & Y.

This isn’t riveting reading for a good numeber of people, but I think its a good exercise because the professional wine world, in my estimation, is absolutely clueless about marketing to anybody besides the 2% of the people that call themselves snobs. Now, some folks are making progress--especially with "Adventure" brands the straightforward, sluggable wines that have clever names and can be found populating end-caps at the local SuperValue Mega-Mart.

But, they are missing the entire middle of the wine drinking public--the folks that drinks the "Adventure" brands, but also go to winery tasting rooms, pay for super premium bottles over $15 bucks and generally identify with wine, but in a autehntic, non pretentious way.

If there’s any doubt that the #1 thesis from the Cluetrain Manifesto (Markets are Conversations) is happening in a big way amongst younger consumers then please show me proof otherwise.

This is really simple. Generally speaking, Generation X & Y is the first wired generations--Generation X as they merged from college and entered the workforce (I’ve been online since 1995 and found my first job starting January 3rd of 1996 on the Internet) and Generation Y they’ve never written a paper on anything else besides Microsoft Word.

This point was really driven home to me while reading the lastest issue of Business 2.0 While highlighting 25 web-based companies that were headlining the so-called Web 2.0--the next generation of the Internet, virtually all of them were youth-oriented; not youth-oriented in the sense that they were marketed to people under 35, just the fact that they have been popularized by people under 35, and in many cases people under 25--and most fall under the category of either social networking or the tools for social networking.

As an example, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Youtube, Jotspot, and even sites like Match.com are driven by early adopters and early adopters tend to be tech savvy high school and college students.

‘’I find out about things I want to buy from my friends or from information on the Internet,’’ says Michael Eliason, 17, of Cherry Hill, N.J.

The above quote? Taken from a very prescient Business Week article written ... in 1999--the year that the oldest Generation Y members turned 20.

What has the wine industry learned in the last seven years--since they now have taken to wine and we know that markets are conversations?

Not much. But, they will. Sooner or later.

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March 1 2006

The Cluetrain is Coming into the Station

Back in the 1999 - 2000 time frame a website called the Cluetrain Manifesto made waves in the dot-com community. Fast Company, I think, did an article on it and it generally received a lot of fanfare and then subsequently a good deal of revile. I was working for an Internet Systems Integrator at the time and the general modus operandi was to shy away from alot of the jargon that had previously become a part of the tech lexicon. This, was <yawn> another addition to that, <yawn> verbal diarrhea of the time.

I forgot about it. Then, while reading a book on blogging (which, trust, has its fair share of hype) it gives wide credit to the Cluetrain Manifesto for forseeing the coming revolution in the way that people and business communicate--transparently.

So, I checked it out online, bought a hardcover copy for .52 cents off of the used Amazon marketplace and revisited the topic.

The funny thing is, darn if this book did give a lucid if not expansive insight into the near term future of marketing. It’s kind of like daily horoscopes where Capricorn has as much validity as Scorpio for an Aries on any given day, but nonetheless there is some insight that is just now beginning to shape the marketplace.

I urge you to check it out, and I’ll be spending a good amount of time on it myself ... the first 10 of the 95 theses are appended below:

Markets are conversations.
Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.
Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conductedin a human voice.
Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissentingarguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open,natural, uncontrived.
People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice.
The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings thatwere simply not possible in the era of mass media.
Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.
In both internetworked markets and amongintranetworked employees, people are speaking to eachother in a powerful new way.
These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms ofsocial organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.
As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, moreorganized. Participation in a networked market changes peoplefundamentally.

What does this have to do with wine?

A lot really the world of wine is one of the most dynamic, changing industries in the business landscape, but, in my humble opinion, its changing from underneath the people that have created the industry. Globalization, demographics, over-production, organics, technology ... The rules are changing and I think it would be interesting to explore wine through the filter of something like the Cluetrain theses .... so I’m going to ... one by one through all 95 ...

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