December 14, 2005
if i owned stormhoek…
[The Stormhoek "Freshness Indicator". Right now it's small, and on the back label. I would make it bigger, prominently on the front label etc etc.]
I work for Stormhoek, I don’t own it. So they can listen to my ideas, or they can tell me go bugger off at their leisure.
But if Stormhoek was my baby, here are a few things I would do.
1. I would put it in a very expensive bottle. One thing we’re not getting across clearly enough is the “quality” angle. I think Robert Scoble was actually surprised when he tasted the wine last week to find out hey, yeah, it’s actually not bad stuff. What Robert, you thunk it was ALL MARKETING?!!!.
2. I would put the “Freshness Indicator” prominently on the front of the bottle. Right now it’s small, and on the back of the bottle. The Freshness Indicator is the little graphic device above that tells the guy in the supermarket when the wine is best drunk. Most wines don’t taste better with age. Some do, certainly- Bordeaux, Burgundies etc- but not at the $10 mark. I think the graphic device telegraphs the Stormhoek schtick pretty instantly. I would also have the indicator redesigned. Right now it doesn’t look “upmarket” enough.
3. I would change the copy below the freshness indicator to read: “The yellow indicates when to enjoy Stormhoek at its freshest and brightest.” Just so there can be no doubt etc.
4. Any marketing literature would be made smart and to-the-point. I despise all that “hummingbirds gathering nectar in the morning light” heterosexual-girlyman vinyard lifestyle-porn crap.
5. Unless you’re willing to spend tens of millions of dollars (dream on), the way to market to people outside the wine trade is not as “potential customers”, but more like “potential kindred spirits”.
I market Stormhoek to the Blogosphere not because it’ll help drive up the sales curve (although yes, that is a good side effect), but because I think coming in contact with “Blogospheric DNA” is healthy for the brand. In return for letting me bore the Blogosphere to death with all my Stormhoek crap, I share with them my marketing insights I learn along the way. I think it’s a fair trade. If they don’t think so, they can go read someone else’s blog.
6. I would make every Stormhoek employee read both The Cluetrain and Seth Godin’s “All Marketers Are Liars”, which I think is a much more useful and interesting book than his far more famous “Purple Cow”.
7. I would leave my comments open, so anyone could add a suggestion below, should they wish. But I guess I do that already. Whatever.
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Um, I think the Freshometer is telling me I shouldn’t drink this wine before the middle of 2008.
Might wanna revisit that…
Hell, I thought it was all a marketing campaign. What’s better than to buy a famous blogger?
It’s a “HughBrand.” Almost the same as HugeBrand. But, better. Fresher. Or something. Heheh!
Anyway, if I owned Stormhoek I’d put one of your drawings on the label.
I’ve only been half following this, but I’m going to pitch my two pennies here:
There’s an “old wine cool” and a “new wine cool”.
“New wine cool” embraces the tech/geek aesthetic of knowledge and elegance.
“Old wine cool” has much FUD about arcane secret knowledge and mysterious vagaries of taste.
In the old cool, the initiated “just know” when a wine will mature, which they show by rambling on in a learned tone. Are they right? Most of your customers don’t know.
In the new cool, I show my superiority by buying a wine that TELLS me when it’s best to drink. See how much smarter I am than that old wine snob?
The freshness label is right on. Can you find other ways to subvert the old cool and build up the new?
I’m having the same reaction as “frosty” — if I hadn’t read all your blogging about what the “freshness matters” slogan is about, I’d be confused about whether that logo meant that the wine should be drunk before or after mid-2008.
Even something like the standard “best before July 2008″ note in small print below the logo would be helpful. I’d read it once, and then I’d _know_ what the logo meant.
Another thing that occurs to me to consider in general for this logo — geeks read things. Put text in front of us that looks interesting; we read it. Put a blog-post-like paragraph about why freshness matters _on the label_, with an obvious headline and maybe a drop-cap to draw in the eye….
kool
fresh-o-meter
very interesting
whens the beta coming up…cant wait to see whose design..
#3 – Seen that Wolf Bass ad on TV. I guess it’s falls into the pornobizzo category.
#4 – Hmmm – good gimmick but I’m sure most people are not so dumb they don’t know they’re being pitched.
Extreme Marketing
Hugh McLeod is what I would call at the extreme end of marketing. His ideas are at once outrageous, hilarious, offensive and passionate. There are no grey areas with the man. You’re either Hughtrain or you’re clueless. I’ve been both (and still can be)…
Okay Hugh, thanks for your input, we all know you don’t own the place, but we do march to the beat of your drum.
1) We have all read Seth’s recent books. The Cluetrain is what inspired the whole thing– although just a couple of us have read it– we’ll do something about that.
2) Perhaps you could upload the color coded ‘freshometer’ (I kinda like the sound of that), it will be easier for people to read and it is as appears on the bottle. (its on the 05 Sauvignon Blanc)
3) Tonyd is dead right.
4) We all pretty much agree with all your other points.
5) How about a pic of you and Robert on the front label? Or would that just be too much shameless pimping? If that is possible?
6) One last thing— Rather than just telling us what to do, Could you give the folks at Tesco a ring and see if you can get them to buy a few cases?
7) BTW- At the dinner Saturday, we were all really surprised to hear how many people had gone out and bought some Stormhoek after reading about it.
Hugh,
I had posted my suggestion for Stormhoek Label, I guess the pictures did come out in the wiki page.
The pics are available in my blogs
http://productmarketingengineer.blogspot.com/
It is ok not to list me in your page. But i think the idea is worth a glance.
I’m finding myself aligned with the sceptics now – this started as a “competition” to make the bottle impactful and I think it’s getting sidetracked into making the bottle appeal to people who’ve read the blog and or are in the community. Surely the label and bottle design has to be focussed in attracting the passing trade and thereafter lead them to the story etc.
Putting it in an expensive bottle is a bad idea – putting it in a bottle that looks expensive/remarkable is much more to the point.
The freshness meter is an interesting thing but the passing punter wont know what the heck it is and as one of your commenters here says – it’s message is not unambiguous.
As i’m ranting, let me also add that when I went to the blog to read about the fire, I suddenly got the impression that id been wrong all along and that Stormhoek was in fact a New Zealand wine (because New Zealand is the first word one reads) – the story is south african wine made with new zealand technology – not new zealand tachnology exported to south africa.
I agree with John. An expensive LOOKING bottle is a good idea. A bottle that costs more than the value it provides is not usually a good business proposition.
[Of course I'm sure you already knew that but I felt I had to add my two cents.]
I do alot of work in the packaging and [inkjet] technology industry and constantly have to remind the engineers that it is the value to the customer that is important, not how much it costs to make. (I also have to remind MYSELF from time to time, which is why I added this comment.)
Thanks for sharing your Stormhoek marketing experience with us and keep up the good work!
Hugh -
I agree, the freshometer does need clarificiation — looks like it is best to hold for 3 yrs….Avoid any “best before” verbiage since that makes wine look like milk. (yech, milk!)
More importantly, the bottle, the label, the marketing all add up to the consumer buying the bottle *once*! If you are looking for repeat customers, what’s in the bottle is much more important.
My $0.02. Cheers,
Tyler
I added the colour version of the fresh-o-meter. I think it’s easier to understand etc etc.
Agree/Disagree?
I think the way to make the label clearer is to keep the colours, but put the word ‘best’ in bold under 2006, 2007 and 2008 and the word ‘good’ under 2009 in non-bold. That way you
- are technically accurate
- don’t make it look like milk
- make it immediately understandable to people who know the colour convention and understandable on examination to people who don’t.
I would consider swapping the yellow and the green. It’s a well understood international convention that green means ‘good’ or ‘go’ or ‘ok’.
There is another slight problem. The casual consumer might not realise that the label refers to the bottle of wine they have in their hands, and that it is not just an example of a label, or referring to something else. To remedy this, I would change the language to something like: ‘When to enjoy this bottle of Stormhoek at its best and brightest’
But these are minor points. It’s basically a very good idea.
It’s the green linking 2009 and ‘ultimate freshness’ that’s confusing… I have to agree that ‘best before’ is nonsense for wine – makes it sound like it will go off. Blossom Hill has a best before date: enough said.
Hmm, I may be odd, but for me wacky/remarkable bottle = dodgy wine.
Normal bottle, right price, good informative label = purchase.
Good stuff inside = repeat purchase.
But I’m probably not an average wine buyer, nor am I your target market…
The colors of the freshness indicator make no sense. Visually I would have thought that in 2009, the green, is when the wine would be it’s best, because green the background under the text Ultimate Freshness. I know that doesn’t make too much sense, why would you put wine on a rack when it won’t taste good for four more years
Just a thought
The colour is important but you should take into account different cultural connotations with the words for colours. e.g. in English, “green” can refer to “unripe” whereas in French “yellow” can have the same connotation.
Also, I am not so sure about this “freshness” thing. Most fresh wine is not particularly good, but its freshness is used to reframe the notion, to turn freshness into something positive. So the Beaujolais nouveau mostly has a horribly “green” (ou “jaune”) taste. So it becomes a cultural and social event, something that has to be done. It is more than the taste of the wine (because if it was just the taste of the wine, nobody would be interested).
I have to confess here to not yet having drunk the bottle of plonk that you sent me, so I don’t speak with any authority. However, if you are trying to reframe the “freshness” of Stormhoek (from something that is historically and culturally seen as a negative, to something that can be seen as a positive) then I suggest you are careful about what colours are used. Also, why get too complicated. Just say “ready to drink now because we have completed all the wine-making processes before we bottle/ship the wine”.
That’s my advice, based on the fact that I like an uncomplicated relationship with the wine that I drink.
I agree, the colors have to go. Here in the USA, green means good, yellow is caution, red is stop: throw that shit out now! But color is too much dependent on culture. Icons are even worse. Calendars at least make sense (100%, 90%, etc?)
How can you imply ‘best before’ without implying “gets worse after”?
I think the whole freshness indicator is totally off-base. Changing colors isn’t going to help.
I’d guess that 80% of Stormhoek bottles will get drunk within a month of purchase, and 80% of the remaining will get drunk within the year.
I would turn it around – people often worry about “gee is this wine not *meant* to be drunk yet?”. So I’d frame it in terms of “ready to drink tonight!” or “go ahead, drink it tonight!” (though in a way that makes it sound less like the reader has trembly hands). So you take the guilt/anxiety off of what people want to do anyway.
(For background, the Stormhoek freshness explanation is at…
http://www.stormhoek.com/archives/2005/11/news_flash_most_1.php
)
Semi-related, I think I’d move from screw-top to fake-cork. Their freshness pitch says “after six or twelve months their nice, fresh, whites were still oxidizing in bottle”, but if my SWAG about bottle-life is true, it won’t matter.
And the screwtop still says CRAP to me, and probably to most people in this market.
One counter-idea – make the screw-top the key signifier of the freshness framing. But otherwise, it smells like a big negative.