Got cabernet? - Currents

Cheers, Oct, 2003

Expect to hear soon from the US Wine Market Council through its just-launched $2 million national ad campaign. Based on the slogan "Wine. Since 6000 B.C.," the print ad campaign premiered Sept. 26 in People magazine, the first in a proposed series of generic wine ads from the St. Helena, CA-based wine industry organization. The first focuses on an ancient Mayan image, a reclining figure with a bowl resting on his belly; the ads show him instead with a wine glass and sunglasses.

The campaign is meant to communicate the authenticity and relevance of wine as part of casual, everyday life, says the council. While advertising will be the centerpiece of the campaign, the council says it intends initiatives in public relations and on the Internet. "While some may see the campaign as a response to the current cycle of global over-production grapes and wine," says John Gillespie, the council's president, "the ten year decline in the marginal wine drinker population in the U.S., and adult per-capita wine consumption levels that remain below those reached in the 1980s are a real call-to-action and show us that our market has much room to grow, if we work together as an industry to put wine on America's tables. The time is right to make this happen."