Tag Archives: gapingvoid

But where is ‘cool’?

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I feel I really ought to clarify the term ‘cool’ used in my previous post in the context of the Wine Conversation.

What I had in mind was the kind of place that a person would not only want to go to, but be seen to go to, and even then talk to others about having been there. In Hugh MacLeod‘s terms, a wine retailing Social Marker. By the shared experience of having been to the shop, individuals would be willing and able to start their own wine conversation.

I believe that the retail experience is key because it is common to each wine consumer no matter what they choose to buy. It is also important to keep in mind that this is about the kind of wine consumer who rarely spends over £5 a bottle.

Hugh himself demonstrated the effectiveness of this by engineering the interest in one retailer, Threshers, around Christmas 2006. He used a viral email campaign to get people to talk about that retailer, who then encouraged others to go there to shop and get their discount. It certainly got a lot of people talking and shopping. Where it failed (for Threshers) was that the discussion was not about them at all, but about the discount, and once that was gone, so were the vast majority of the customers.

Sad news for wine marketers

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This story caught my eye this weekend:

Orbital Collapses into Administration (from Off Licence News)

You may never have heard of Orbital, but if you read about wine you have probably heard about Stormhoek and their more innovative marketing campaigns, particularly online, and as a blog reader/publisher you will almost certainly have come across Hugh MacLeod at Gapingvoid who has been working with the brand.

They have managed to create great visibility and brand awareness for stormhoek, particularly in certain quarters. Unfortunately, it seems that they have not been able to match that with commercial returns, and the business has gone into administration.

This is by no means the end of the story, as it is essentially about cash flow and not the brand or the wine, but it just goes to show that we may talk a lot about what wine could do to become better at communicating with customers and the wine conversation, but margins are so tight, there is very little one can do without very deep pockets.

I trust someone will buy the business as a whole and keep these people in their jobs, and it might even be one of the big international businesses who’d love to have the brand and expertise in their ‘stable’.

A sad day for marketers in the wine business.

As Hugh likes to say, and Stormhoek have recently headed their site:

“Change the world or go home”

Unfortunately, the world doesn’t seem ready to change, yet!

[UPDATE] Josh at Pinotblogger has picked up on this story as well and made some interesting points, some of which I commented on on his blog. Definitely interesting times.

Alternate truths and statistics

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Hmmm…

Time is a factor. I will continue to monitor this, but this does not look like much of a major change from the background levels, certainly not over time.

Of course mentioning this skews the stats, so no reference to the viral marketing campaign nor to the originating site, but you can follow the link here and read the previous views here if this rings any bells.

I have done research and analysis, but not for some time, but these graphs would seem to support my view that although there has been an undoubted spike recently, it has not lasted nor did it have the lasting effect of the first campaign. I have also searched on both potential versions of the retailer’s name as it has an impact on the results (as you can see).


Over 2 months

Over 6 months

As I committed myself to be a nay-sayer from the start, I am monitoring this with interest, but would be very interested to know more about the impact on sales (as opposed to mere “mentions”). I wonder if we’ll ever get these?

Marketing Innoculation

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So Threshers and Stormhoek are at it again (no I will not link to it, but I suspect you can find it easily enough) – you can read my previous views here and here.

Having just spent 6 weeks trying to rid my body of an infection, I don’t have the energy to fight a marketing “viral” campaign too, but I think that the consumer “body” will be better able to resist it this time around – although I may be wrong.

My own view is that resistance is low at Christmas, but that at the moment the word of mouth element will be sufficiently dilute for it not to take control. It would be amazing if it did, but there are probably enough deal junkies and gapingvoid ‘disciples’ to spread the word. However, how many times can Hugh do this before he ruins his own credibility and that of the brands he works on?

Let’s wait and see. I suspect the answer will be inconclusive, with a rise in sales to justify the action but not nearly the same impact, vindicating the opponents.

Thresher virus lives to fight again

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Hugh MacLeod over at gapingvoid, the architect of the online success of the Stormhoek wine brand, has set the question:

“In short, I think there are enough people out there wiling to have another go at redeeming the coupon one more time, even if this time the story isn’t as newsworthy to break into the mainstream media machine like it did last time.

Thoughts?”


See the full article here

I have left a comment (to be moderated) with my view. Don’t do it!

* I think that the fact that it happened at Christmas, when everyone was pre-disposed to look for a bargain, was the main reason it took off.

* I think that many potential customers for Threshers felt cheated when they understood that the regular discount is 33% and so 40% was not nearly as big a deal as they had expected.

* I think that focusing on price alone is a depressingly familiar, and dead-end, campaign concept.

Having said all this, I should point out that I spoke up in favour of the marketing success of the campaign back in December – it was clever and it was well executed. Doing it again, would tarnish that.

Hugh, Gapingvoid and Stormhoek are all well respected. Surely there is more they could do with this respect they have generated? How about a campaign to support your high street specialist wine shop? What about a plan that educated consumers about South Africa, offering better deals for buying three from that country? What about involving the consumer by getting their feedback on the wines?

There is so much that we do not do to get consumers interested in quality wine, and we do not need to feed that craving for more discounts any further.

So, Mr MacLeod, thoughts?