DESIGNER'S CORNER

Oh Hear Ye Loyal Customers: Brand Relevance Is the Key for Staying Current with Consumers

By Tim Ross

Can you judge a bottle of wine by its label? How important is a package's appearance in the overall appreciation of the wine? What clues in the aisle direct you to the right bottle? To many consumers, the packaging is the primary element in their decision either to buy or simply move on. Of course, the packaging must communicate contents, meet government standards, and hopefully stand out from the pack. Most importantly, though, the packaging should both promote the brand to new customers and continue to engage the brand's loyal customers. A winery's reputation lives and dies with the quality of the product, and at minimum the packaging is the outward manifestation of that quality.

A wine brand's appearance must keep up with changes. Many wineries focus intently on improving the quality of their wine using time-tested techniques as well as innovative technology. How many are focusing efforts on packaging that stays current with their consumers' tastes and needs or reflects the product's improvements, while communicating the winery's mission and values to the consumer? Demographics are ever-changing and competition is constant. But with correctly managed brand images, consumers retain awareness and recognition as the brand grows. Consumers will stay loyal to brands that are true to their basic market yet continue to offer innovative and relevant products.

Since the label is only one aspect of the brand, companies are constantly looking to other factors that help signal clues to consumers. For instance, changing your bottle color alone can play an important role in letting a consumer know of the quality inside the bottle. Recently there has been an upward trend in the use of darker glass colors traditionally reserved for champagnes and European cabernets. The darker colors are a simple way for a winery to continue to impress their consumer with the sense that they are producing better wines and delivering quality inside the bottle.

Even the most casual wine drinker will admit that a heavier bottle makes them believe the wine inside is better. Traditionally, high-end wineries used heavier and taller bottles for wines above $40. However, you can now find a $12 bottle of wine in a very heavy glass bottle. As a brand strategy it says "We have better quality," and as the industry and consumers will tell you, the $12 bottles of wine are getting better. Either way, the use of heavier glass has become a hallmark of quality wines.

Along with the weight, shape, and size of a bottle, a brand's evolution can also be seen at the top of the bottle: the prized and undeniable champion of keeping your wine fresh—the cork. Screw caps once seen as cheap and swill-like have made impressive inroads into fine wine. Most consumers realize that screw caps are a better technology and more convenient than cork. However, until recently many manufacturers would not dare offer a $15 bottle of wine without a cork.

Wine packaging cannot ignore any chance to express relevance to its loyal customers, as the wine aisles are becoming more and more competitive.

RH Phillips is an example of one of those companies that have entered the market with a quality wine and packaging that matches. There is no doubt that a great deal of thought went into understanding how to evolve packaging to match consumers' needs in a very sensitive and traditional area. The new packaging signals an improvement while staying lockstep with consumers demand for a quality and freshness.

Sometimes knowing your consumer is more important than knowing the industry itself. Joe Gallo's mantra of "everything we do starts with understanding the consumer" in part has driven Gallo to be one of the most successful wine brands in the world. And, as you know, consumers and consumer tastes are constantly evolving. There has been a notable shift in wine consumers' profiles. Undoubtedly, you will notice a shift in the packaging that caters to some of these consumers.

The typical wine drinker is not just the 35- to 50-year-old male anymore; we see a whole new younger generation looking to graduate from beer to wine. Once again, wine has evolved and become hip, introducing itself to a younger and more progressive audience that does not follow the traditional approach of buying and consuming wine. For example, the trend of packaging wine in an 8 oz. aluminum can is a clear indication that brands are evolving not only to stay current in packaging innovations but also evolving to reach new markets. The younger audience definitely has a more active lifestyle and searches out products that fit their needs. The tiny little single serve can is not only hip at an afternoon party, it is easy to travel with; something the traditional 750-ml glass bottle struggles with on river rafting trips, for example.

The R.H. Phillips winery introduced screw top bottles in association with an educational and lighthearted campaign, anchored by the Web site www.corkamnesty.com

The evolution of wine brands is also reaching outside the bottle. In today's competitive arena where 1,000+ wines compete for mind-share in 70 feet of grocery shelf space, it has become increasingly important for wines to "touch" consumers in the aisle as they make their buying decision. As consumers, we are starved for time—decisions and options need to be made easier for us and in a timely fashion. As much as we want to stay loyal to a brand, if it is too hard to understand, then we most likely will move on. Long gone are the days of plain brown or white shipping containers with Times Roman or some other standard house font listing the contents.

Winemakers today have to appeal to younger wine drinkers without losing the respect their brands have built over time.

Now the shipping box is a billboard or beacon for helping consumers make decisions in the aisle and often double for point of purchase displays. Again, certain wine brands have evolved to encompass the entire user experience from buying to drinking, ultimately making the consumer's choice easier.

Staying loyal to your consumer, simply put, means hearing them. Whether that is changing your packaging so they can take your brand outdoors or signaling to them that the wine is worthy to serve in the bottle to your guests, it is imperative that a brand pay attention to its evolving place in a consumer's lifestyle. As consumers change, brands should change too. In the wine industry, change happens from vintage to vintage, opening opportunities for wineries to engage and affect their consumers through their product offerings. As a winery matures from year to year, a brand's package plays an important role in helping that change seem logical, relevant, and—at times—even designed for consumers needs.

Tim Ross is a principal at Kendall Ross Brand Development and Design. Kendall Ross is a leading retail branding firm that works with companies at times of growth and transition to help build premium brands. Visit www.kendallross.com