December 23 2006
If there is a PH.D in the audience that understands the psychology of exclusivity, I’ll surely be grateful for a lesson on the power of being granted access.
What is it about the allure of the velvet rope that makes an inordinately long line queuing up outside a night club interesting to stand in … on the off chance that we might be granted entry, if we’re on the list or we happen to have attractive woman with us or some other indiscriminate social factor, and we’ll get hit with a high cover charge to boot. For some things, it seems, we’re all too willing to hand over money, sometimes absent rational thought.
I just came back from a Green Bay Packers game at Lambeau Field in Wisconsin (a trip that every football fan should make and akin, in my book, to taking a pilgrimage). My brother-in-law relayed a story about an acquaintance who is now in his mid-thirties that wrote a letter to the Packer’s when he was 11 years old asking for football tickets. Some 25 years later after being placed on the list, he’s a successful business person in Atlanta, GA and the Packers track him down with an offer of tickets for him, if he’d like to accept the opportunity to lease a luxury box … he does, indeed, choose to lease the suite and buys a house in Green Bay to use exclusively for tailgating purposes to accompany his luxury box--an expense that has now cost him a couple hundred thousand dollars based off of his innocent pre-pubescent letter asking for tickets.
While we all want to belong, I think some of this psychology/psychosis has to do with the small satisfaction that many people take in being in on something that the masses aren’t in tune with … for the same reason that people seek out new music … in today’s day and age our consumables are as much of a facet of our personality as our genetic makeup.
I’ve been signing up for allocated wines mailing lists lately … partly in curiosity to see how this portion of the wine world operates and partly because I want to taste the upper end of the wine spectrum to fill out my own wine education deficiencies. Harlan Estate, Williams Selyem, and several others are all wineries that I’ve recently signed up with and none of them have wine that is available for the public.
I’m anxiously awaiting my movement from mailing list member to mailing list customer for a handful of these high-end wines, sight, er, taste unseen.
Williams Selyem sent me a letter of introduction that is brilliant in its simplicity … damn if I don’t want to buy their wine. But, I can’t get past the Velvet Rope, though I’m going to stand in line … when I signed up they said it might be two years or so before I am able to buy.
The letter says (excerpted):
“You’ve been added to our waiting list and we look forward to adding you to the active buying list, referred to as THE LIST, in the coming months. We will notify you via letter when you have transitioned to THE LIST.
Williams Selyem wines are not easy to obtain as we do not have a tasting room that sells to the general public. There is only one way to obtain Williams Selyem wines…you have to be on THE LIST.
While you occasionally may see a Williams Selyem wine available on a wine list at a four or five star restaurant, you will never see one of our wines commercially available for a lower price than you paid. That’s because we have only one price for our wines for all customers. We give you the best opportunity to purchase our wines at the lowest price.
Once you have been added to THE LIST, twice each year you will have the opportunity to purchase a limited number of bottles of the appellation and estate wines (Spring Release) and the vineyard designate wines (Fall Release). At the beginning of both releases, you will receive your Williams Selyem newsletter and an order form which shows your allocation of wines (number of bottles you are able to purchase). The allocation is a projection of what we would like to make available to you; however all wines are sold first come, first served. They are not reserved and we encourage you to order early.
… During the first few years on THE LIST your allocation will be limited. However, once you have been on THE LIST for a while and buying patterns emerge (by purchasing continuously from our Spring and Fall Releases); you will gain access to a greater variety/quantity of our highly prized wines.”
This is marketing brilliance.
They are saying, ‘welcome to the line, we’ll let you know when you make it in the club, you’ll be buying at the same price that everybody else buys at (no free cover charge), and we’re going to monitor how much you buy and we expect you to buy continuously, if you buy enough continuously then we might let you into our VIP room where you can spend more money.’
And the funny thing is I just might. Somebody help me understand the psychology behind this mania?
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