Comments on: wine as commodity

By: rae

rae — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:49:24 +0000

I have been in a quest to find the most great tasting wines out there. I have tried wines recommendation in http://vino.com, but nothing seems to satisfy my palate. Any additional recommendations?

By: Senthil

Senthil — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 04:40:48 +0000

Wow thats a clever picture… I would love to use it in my facebook application HappyWishes

By: Sean Tierney

Sean Tierney — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:09:20 +0000

You know something is NOT a commodity when they're willing to go out of their way to get it when a perfectly acceptable substitute can be had for cheaper / less friction. @Paul 'purpose of the customer or consumer which is about "digging a hole"' but it's not even really about digging a hole if you think about it. It's about planting a beatiful tree, or getting at a broken sprinkler head. And then if you extrapolate further, it's not even really about those things either- it's about wanting beatiful scenery in your backyard >> peace & comfort >> on and on... This is definitely an important insight. It's why Yellowtail has done so well - they dispensed with all the wine snobbery and did situational assessment vs. feature assessment. Clayton Christensen's book "Innovator's Soluation" has some more great examples if you're interested in this type of thinking. bottomline: if you strike a nerve with your audience and they'll go out of their way to buy your stuff, you're not a commodity. Figuring out how to achieve that is always the challenge. sean

By: el jefe

el jefe — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 08:42:23 +0000

Decommodification. Bingo. This is not a new concept (ask the people making disk drives for example.) But a very very important concept. We’re trying. Thanks Hugh.

By: MariaD

MariaD — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:01:02 +0000

Is customization a way to decommodify?
I am looking for ways to customize math learning. There are no reasons, anymore, to have it THAT standardized.
In particular, I am now searching for a way to help small groups produce their own “mini-curricula” based on common, but customizable, frameworks. Interestingly, pretty much all “collaborative book creation” ways I found so far produce a convergent, singular, voted-on product that can later be copied and distributed like, well, a book (which is a commodity of sorts). A wiki, for example, squeezes everybody’s different takes on a subject into one “latest, best so far” version. This is a problem, really.
I don’t know if my brainstorming made sense to you, but what you drew and wrote started it, so there!

By: Edric Chen

Edric Chen — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 07:42:06 +0000

Speaking of wine, what do you gather from the Yellow Tail story? It seems they are really enjoying the benefits of their marketing angle which for me is, “People drink wine, period.” No pretenses, no cookie-cutter crap. I think it’s brilliant compared to a lot of brands out there.
Most people including myself cannot distinguish the difference between wines. Well, at the very least, I know white wine from red wine. So when someone tells me to drink their wine, heck, why not?
As someone said before, Stormhoek might just be the next Yellow Tail.

By: peter

peter — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:25:24 +0000

but is wine a commodity? At one level — “house wine” — maybe it is. But surely if consumers routinely reject a $3 bottle of Merlot and buy a $25 bottle instead, hasn’t the wine market already been largely “decommodified”?

By: Mathew Ferguson

Mathew Ferguson — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 02:17:35 +0000

There are a few decommodified companies out there: Starbucks — Italian cafe experience pulled coffee out of commodity status.
Sumo Salad in Australia: sure I can get salad anywhere but they have salads no one else has.
Certain cooking ingredients — special flours, sugars, salts.
We have a bookshop chain here in Melbourne called Readings who use service and bookseller knowledge to pull themselves out of commodity. If you say you like X author then they’ll know what other books you may like. Try getting that at Borders.

By: Anthony Nicalo

Anthony Nicalo — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:31:46 +0000

It is true that most people in the wine trade don’t realize they are selling a commodity. When is the last time you tasted a wine that wasn’t stomped by a wonderful little family? Nearly all wine is marketed this way. Most wine businesses do not have the option of actually decommodifying, because they are making a commodity product. What you call the decommodification business is really just a different marketing angle. The truth of the matter is that there really are some small farmers in the world growing and making something beyond a commodity– an agricultural product. Just because a product is traded on the commodity market, e.g., corn, pork, orange juice, doesn’t mean that there aren’t great farmers producing an authentic, delicious product that is quite distinctive.

By: Matt Wardman

Matt Wardman — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:22:35 +0000

>There’s so much choice out there, that once you get the wine bug, you easily can spend the rest of your life sampling thousands of them, and never get even close to sampling them all.
Why does this remind me of blogs?
Aha — the business of decommodification.
Thanks for the thoughtful post.
Matt

By: Brooks Moses

Brooks Moses — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:43:29 +0000

Grapes are a commodity. Grapes grown on the grapevine on my back patio are not a commodity.
Maybe wine made from grapes that I know, because I’ve been reading a blog about them for the past many months, so I’ve been building up anticipation of what the wine that’s made from them is likely to be like, is not a commodity?
(Are people who will read a wine blog for as long as it takes to get from vine to wine a commodity?)

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:31:44 +0000

Hugh, have you seen Fishhoek from the global wine behemoth Constellation? Is this their take on challenging Stormhoek in certain regions? Your post takes on even more relevance when you consider the power the global wine companies can wield
Love the work, enjoy the states!
Richard

By: CheekierMeSly

CheekierMeSly — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:50:07 +0000

Paul's got it! "So how does one "decommodify" wine?" You know how, Hugh. It happened with the Blue Monster. Sorry to be all high on the "Tipping Point" vibe, but you and Malcolm Gladwell should really have a conversation. With the Blue Monster, a "connector" type saw it and shared it with MS peeps, and your social object took off. The Blue Monster social object connected with the Stormhoek social object, and MSers went gaga for the wine. It was "theirs". It was associated with a social object they identified with (Blue Monster). And it was associated with you. All by word of mouth and personal endorsements. Their enthusiasm begat enthusiasm, etc. With market saturation and commodities, insight as to what's good and what sucks is difficult to fathom. But a friend, or someone you trust, or someone you admire, or someone you think is "cool" - they endorse something, and you'll take the next step and try it. You've experience with their tastes, you think it's similar to yours (or you'd like it to be). So you try the new thing. You're a Connector, Hugh. And you're also a Maven. But you're not a Salesperson. The good news is, you know plenty of such creatures.

By: John Wesley

John Wesley — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:25:55 +0000

The narrative that a product fills in your life…something or other

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:40:38 +0000

If Gary Vaynerchuk had a vineyard and a wine label, I’d drink his wine. I know him. I’d want to drink the wine of someone that passionate about wine and about people.