Packaging count

Wines & Vines, June, 1999 by Philip E. Hiaring

IV. Honor thy Father and thy Mother.

For consistency, integrity, and believability: let your label remain true to its origins, even as it grows.

Meditation: Check out labels before and after design changes.

V. Thou shalt not kill.

Lack of time and decisiveness will kill your designer, materials suppliers, bottling team, yourself and, ultimately, your ambitions.

Meditation: Create a New Product Timeline, and review it with your design, supply, and production teams. Be sure to sit down.

VI. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Do not subject your package to "design by committee". Marketing Managers, stay true.

Meditation: Ask yourself, who is the single authority of taste and design for your package. Am I faithful to my Brand?

VII. Thou shalt not steal.

The greatest achievements in packaging design are made under conditions of ultimate trust.

Meditation: When your designer gives you greater results than you expected, offer a surprise bonus. A year later is not too late.

VIII. Thou shalt not bear false witness.

Be more like Moses, less like Presidents. Seductive terms like "Barrel Select," "Special Reserve," etc. may advance brands, but they cause long-term damage to the category.

Meditation: Consider this thought: "If you have to ask the BATF to arbitrate the truth, no good can befall the category."

IX. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.

Know what you want and stick with it. If it is explorative call it that.

Meditation: Provide Positioning & Objectives documents to designers. Insist that designers provide a creative strategy that you agree to.

X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods.

There is room enough for everyone in this highly fragmented industry. Let your brands be themselves, not a cheap look-alike with a short lifespan.

Meditation: Create a wine package targeted to Chimney Sweeps or Dictionary Editors.

Lee Nordlun Delicato Family Vineyards

RELATED ARTICLE: Tiny wine outlets spring up in Asian cities

When there is a tasting at Corks wine bar in the trendy Ladder Street area of Hong Kong, three's a crowd. With a mere 60 square feet of space, most of that occupied by racks carrying 150 different labels, there's hardly room to wield a corkscrew. When she stands in the center of the shop, shop manager Nicola Buswell can stretch out her hands and almost touch the walls.

Set above the skyscrapers of downtown Hong Kong in an area of new restaurants and bars where foreign Yuppies live in cramped apartments in divided tenements, Corks has two captive markets. The bizarre liquor licensing laws of Hong Kong mean some restaurants may be open for a month before they can sell wine. If customers want a bottle with dinner, they pop into Corks. Similarly, the well-paid young financiers live in flats too small for a large refrigerator, let alone a cellar. If they want to replenish home supplies, Corks is the answer.

Location is key to success at the mini-cellar game. Many similar outlets are either in busy shopping streets or amid the highrise apartment complexes common to Hong Kong. Corks is situated alongside the open air public escalator - longest in the world - that climbs the flank of-Hong Kong island from the business district to the largely expatriate mid-level residential area. A trendy cafe society has [grown around the moveable stairway that whisks people up the steep slope.