make purchasing decisions based solely on packaging," says Rob. "One woman I spoke with buys Wolf Blass Grey Label shiraz because its dark grey label looks great on her granite kitchen counters."
Small wine producers face the same marketing challenges with fewer resources. Henry of Pelham winery, in St. Catharines, Ont., recently introduced two wines called Sibling Rivalry. Their labels – one teal blue, the other fire-engine red – feature three handsome young bucks who look like modernday Hardy boys. Copy focuses on the passion and personalities of the sibling owners, Daniel, Matthew
and Paul Speck, never mentioning any technical details. Sealed with screw caps and priced at $14, the wines hit women’s statistically preferred price band of $12 to $15. “I know nothing about marketing to women,” says Paul, winery president and eldest brother. “I thought the label was too masculine, but the women we showed it to all loved it.”
One of the most successful campaigns has been managed by Doug Beatty, vice-president of marketing for Colio Estate Wines in Harrow, Ont. In July 2008, the winery introduced a $13 red, white and rosé under the brand name Girls’ Night Out, with a screw cap, and promised to donate 25 cents for every bottle sold from July to December of that year to second-year female students at Ontario colleges (the province would match the amount). Bottles decorated with a cocktail dress and a cute saying were intended to appeal to 25- to 49-year-olds. To the winery’s surprise and delight, Girls’ Night Out was purchased by women of all ages, as well as by men taking it home to share with their wives or girlfriends. By Dec. 31, more than 9,500 cases of wine had been sold, and in early 2009, cheques were presented to the four beneficiaries.
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2 Comments
This is both a laughable and offensive article. I cannot believe that as a serious "journalist" you would suggest that women are incapble of enjoying wines for the same reasons as their male counterparts. Personally, I have always based my preferences on those qualities that make a good wine, well, good. Taste, quality, finish. The fact that a woman was documented as saying that she chose her favourite wine because the label matched her countertop is far from indicative of our preferences. I would suggest winemaker's focus on producing a great wine at a reasonable cost. Marketing ploy solved.
Screw tops because women are unable to muster the strength to pull a cork out of a bottle? We haul 6 bags of groceries in one arm, a 30 lb child in the other, etc etc and we can't pop a cork? In my opinion, screw-top or not, the changes Wolf Blass has made to their wine for the purposes of appealing to their female market has worsened their product. What used to be one of my favourite wines no longer makes an appearance at my dinner table. Wine-makers, by all means, go ahead and make your bottles attractive. Why not. You may very well lure your female consumers into a first purchase. But if we don’t like what’s in the bottle, it will sit on our granite counter tops making our home beautiful while we sip someone else’s wine. I think the writer of this article might have done well to mention there are countless bottle openers that have solved the problem of the stubborn cork, for those of us unable to open a wine bottle or more accurately for those of us who find it a bit of a time consuming pain when company is over and there are many bottles to be opened. But winemakers need not worry about cork vs screwtop, if we like what’s in the bottle, we will find a way in. This article lacks reasonable research and common sense.