License to Steal

Wines & Vines, Jan, 2005 by Dan Berger

A remote wine country area wanted to promote its wines, but local brainstorming yielded only modest and unfruitful proposals. Then the vintners learned of the benefits of joining forces with their local chamber of commerce, a tactic that, said the executive director of the winery association, would pay off handsomely.

Another wine country region had a lot of aimless tourist traffic and didn't know how to coordinate efforts among its various winery members. Then the director of the wineries' association heard of an advertising campaign that played on a unique theme, an idea that was ripe to be adopted.

Yet another local wine association said its state had had a burst of activity with numerous new wineries opening their doors--and every one of them calling to ask for help. In response, it developed an online template of do's and don'ts for new winery owners. The multi-tiered guide answered a lot of questions, and now that template is being made available to other wine regions facing expansion in their winery base.

The above examples represent only a fraction of the benefits that resulted from the networking at a conference in Ohio called License to Steal, held Nov. 8-10, 2004.

Regional winegrowing representatives and vintners were invited to attend the first of a soon-to-be annual event, in order to share ideas. Judging from the response of all attendees, the cross-pollination was tremendously helpful in formulating new, creative ideas for marketing wine directly to consumers.

And that's critical for small wineries that are not in mainstream areas. Or wineries in nonreciprocal trade states.

Many of the attendees obliquely referred to the consolidation of the wholesale wine business shrinking the size of one layer of the traditional three-tiered approach to marketing wine. That means small, family owned and run wineries have to take sales strategies into their own hands, making statewide and regional wine marketing organizations vital.

Clearly, this is not a high priority for most California wineries, which can sell direct to in-state and reciprocal trade state consumers as well as direct to retailers and restaurants in the state. (In fact, California was barely represented at the conference.)

But direct marketing is vital for wineries in places like New York, Ohio, Virginia, Missouri, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Michigan and Indiana--all of which sent their key representatives to the conference, each one with ideas to share.

The locale was Geneva State Park in Ohio, adjacent to Lake Erie. The idea for the conference was hatched long ago in brainstorming sessions between Donniella Winchell, executive director of the Ohio Wine Producers Association, and Jim Trezise, president of the New York Wine and Grape Foundation.

In two-and-a-half days of meetings, so many key ideas were passed around the room that attendees' fingers became sore taking notes. "This is wonderful," said Claudia Chittim of the New Mexico Wine Growers Association. "I got a lot of good ideas out of this."

Competition for wine sales normally keeps such conferences close-to-the-vest kinds of affairs, but with regions as diverse and far-flung as these, no one seemed shy boasting about local successes they have had.

Interestingly, none of the regions' wine marketing secrets overlapped except one: many said a key tactic is to form partnerships with travel, food, retail, and restaurant groups. Two voices are better than one, they said.

About 100 people attended the conference, notably the peripatetic Trezise, who spoke of overwhelming success with his New York Wines and Dines promotion, which started in the wake of the 9/11 disasters and has since developed legs of its own. (The day the conference ended, Trezise flew off to participate in a major conference sponsored by Wine-America in Seattle.)

Jessica Cobb, marketing specialist with the Missouri Department of Agriculture's Wine and Grape Program, spoke of her clever advertising campaign using freeway signs that said, "California is 2,000 miles away, but great wine is at your next exit."

Jenny Engle, executive director of the Pennsylvania Wine Association, spoke about multi-tiered campaigns designed to link wine country areas with B & Bs, dining spots and antique fairs, and how various partnerships helped her develop brochures and shelf talkers at little or no cost to her members.

Linda Jones, executive director of the Michigan Grape and Wine Industry Council, spoke of an information project developed with assistance from Michigan State University that helps new wineries get started. She pledged to make a complete version of the project available to all wine regions that need it.

Winchell encouraged winery owners to join local tourism boards, speak to Rotary Clubs, and become the voice of their community.

Trezise pointed out that without affiliations to nonwine organizations, wineries are on their own. But by connecting with charities such as hospitals, and retail organizations such as local economic development boards, wineries can emphasize the agricultural base that wine represents, a vital message in separating wine from beer and spirits in the mind of the public.