DISQUS

Michael Grisley · 1 year ago

I was waiting for some news from Spain about all this as I just read their unemployment rate is the highest it has been in years. As a US based importer of mainly Spanish wine, I am curious and even more nervous about how this is going to effect Spanish wine producers, and in turn, business here in US. My main concern with Spain is one that isn't anything new, but something I feel needs to change. It is the concept of "regional" marketing. It seems to me that there aren't any "SPAIN" marketing campaigns (well, effective ones anyway!) and I think this is unfortunate. Regions such as Rioja, Priorato, Ribera del Duero and Rias Baixas have fantastic regional ad campaigns and marketing in the US, but I think for Spain to "weather the economic crisis" as you say, this could be another easy, relatively inexpensive way to help promote "SPAIN," not just individual regions. These places are already paying top dollar to promote their regions, why not join forces, cut costs, and promote Spain as a whole? That being said, in my mind, this could be done VERY easily and INEXPENSIVELY through the internet as you mention. Anyway you look at it, I think that Spain and Portugal, hell, for that matter, every wine producing country needs to have a bigger presence in the online world. Especially with the problems that France is having with their advertising woes, now is the time to for Spain and Portugal to jump at the opportunity to promote their wines any way possible, but especially more through the internet.

gabriellaopaz · 1 year ago

Michael, I would love to see this happen, but I fear that it never will. Why? Allow me to explain through an example. While at a conference here in Spain, I was chatting with a woman from Galicia about this very same issue. I could see her fingers dig deep within her palms, her jaw grind in a slow and meticulous circular fashion and her shoulders tense to the point of snapping, simply because she didn't want her region, culture, and life blood to be associated with the brand, Spain. Sadly, she is not alone, as you well know, Catalans would rather saw off their right foot than associate themselves with the peninsula. While trying to sell Steve De Long's Iberian map here in Barcelona, I stopped by a Catalan book store, hosting several maps of Catalunya, asking if they might be interested in an Iberian wine map. "No, if it is not solely of Catalunya, we're not interested and there's the door", was his general response.

My point being, that anger, fear and cultural discrimination during Franco's time has literally ripped this country into some large swaths of regional isolation, and regardless of an economic crisis, unless we're begging in the streets for someone to buy a bottle of wine, I doubt it will happen. But I'm happy to be proved wrong!!!! The best I think we hope for is some gutsy Spanish wineries to get on the ball and start using the internet to market their individual, or regional, brands.

Dylan · 1 year ago

Couldn't the issues of regional loyalties be resolved by building the brand of Spain with them in mind? Imagine a Spain brand that boasts the separate regions for their own unique style, yet they are all unified through a passion for wine. This was a major point and challenge in communications for Bahamas Tourism (where the country's GDP depends on it)--it wasn't just one island with one thing to do, every island had it's own unique identity and it was branded as such. So while, it would be great to see those differences put aside, what's to stop embracing those differences and allowing the unification to be through wine?

Justin Roberts · 1 year ago

Even getting the producers within a single DO in Spain to work together is almost impossible. They are all so suspicious of each other. Here in Jerez the trade has been slowly and painfully descending into crisis for a long time, but many bodegas still have the "if he's there, then I'm not going" attitude. They would rather not sell a bottle than have it on the same shelf as a competitor's wine. Madness! I went to Sauternes recently, where there is an official AC shop in the village selling wines from every producer, they even had a blend of wine from every producer called Duc du Sauternes. If you tried even the shop idea in Jerez it would fall flat almost immediately. When I lived in London there were constantly tastings devoted to wines from particular denominations, regions, countries etc, but never anything for sherry. I always thought that was strange, given the UK is their biggest market. Now I know why...

gabriellaopaz · 1 year ago

I've been seriously thinking about your idea Dylan, and I think the closest we've come to the idea of a brand "Spain" emphasizing separate and unique regions is this blog. And although we've made some headway here in Iberia, promoting any wine that crosses our lips from Spain to Portugal, getting a successful internet marketing campaign going here is like pulling teeth.

However, I do have faith. As this economic crises bears down on Iberia, increasing our already 11% unemployment rate, fear will continue to take hold of businesses, forcing them to reevaluate what works and what doesn't. Clearly, you can't escape the influence of the Internet, as every major international organizations has, or are in process, of embracing web 2.0. That said, as Spain works on the peer pressure principle, once a few large companies jump on the bandwagon, the rest will scramble for fear of not being in the "cool crowd".

My point is that although the philosophy of brand "Spain", while emphasizing individuality, is a solid idea, I don't think it's realistic for quite awhile. As 70 year old wounds need to heal from the civil war, I think the best we can hope for is that a handful of large, internationally respected wineries, will see the value of social media, whereby influencing the smaller guys.

Arch Bell · 1 year ago

I think Gabriella makes an excellent point here. You would be hard pressed to find a more regionalized country than Spain. I've been traveling regularly to Spain since 1996 and I can say that Spain winning the European Championships in futbol was probably the most unified time I ever saw the country.
Anyways, I could spend hours on this topic but in regards to wine branding and marketing, I think you would be hard pressed to ever find Catalans willing to share the marketing space with Gallegos or with Manchegos. Imagine a wine from Priorat or Montsant being marketing in the same space as a wine from the Madrid D.O.... Hah! Not likely.

Vitor Mendes · 1 year ago

Michael you are so right! One of the big problems here in Portugal, is that people are still very close minded! The internet is still a relatively unknown tool for the most part of the guy´s who decide the businesses in the wineries os wine companies. How to change this? Believe me i dont know... What i knoe is that we need a strategy, and the people that depends on this industry got to open their eyes to this tool, if not we will have a real crisis in the next years. The critics reviews are great, th wines are great to, but without a strategy to build a brand we will not be able to get there! At Vinixá our goal is to be different even on that point, and although we are still very young on the industry, and we are a little short on the advertising budget, we are trying hard to become one of the front guy´s. From your end we need to believe in us, and help us on the US market to spread also the word on our wines. Together we can make things hapend, in spight of all crisis and closed minds...

Cheers

José Eduardo · 1 year ago

Dear Vitor Mendes,

Please allow me - a portuguese winery representative (Cortes de Cima) - to suggest that you use us and Quevedo as examples for the other wineries. We where the 1st winery in Portugal (29/04/1999) to have a website and also the 1st portuguese winery to have a blog (06/2008). Right now we are using twitter, facebook, youtube, flickr, digg, .... and other social tools to improve and show a human side behind the enterprise.
If a couple of good examples is not enough then it's just plain dumb...

Gonzlo · 9 months ago

Hi
as a marketer I think regions are missing the point and whoever positions itself as the spanish wine will ultimate win in exports markets. By the way what do you think of wines from Castilla La mancha?.
Rgds

Gonzalo

RichardA · 1 year ago

I recently read "Buyology," a new book about marketing and neuroscience. It has some fascinating data and info about marketing, and the reasons why consumers purchase items. I will be writing a more detailed post on my blog about the book and its findings but it does directly relate to your post.

In 2007, US corporations spent about $12 Billion on market research. Yet 8 out of 10 new product launches fail within the first 3 months. Much of that research seems to be very unsuccessful. Traditional marketing does not work that well so something different is needed.

I would agree that the Internet is fertile ground for marketing, that it can offer many advantages, including being much less costly than traditional advertising and marketing. The Spanish wine industry would be doing themselves a terrible injustice if they ignored the benefits of the Internet.

John D. Zuccarinoi · 1 year ago

I am a small wine producer and have found the web to be the best bang for the buck...one...you can connect in ways never afforded to small business before...so foe under $100.00 for the camera I now run a www.Wine101.TV TV show...I could of never done this years ago...Wine 2.0 is effective but you have to have a BRAND thus our brand promotions...ck out our web site to get a feel for branding...

Vitor Mendes · 1 year ago

Ryan, you are absolutely correct. In fact as you know, my strugle here in Portugal has been the same. No doubt that wineries can improve their results and build a brand using intensivly the internet!!! But how can we make them see that they are losing to much time, and that other countries have already discovered this fantastic tool? How to make someone see this, if i am now waiting for a week now, for a simple information of the percentages on the grapes, to get labels approved in the USA??? This is frustrating! That´s why i think that you idea of promoting a conference here in Portugal, would be a great idea and a big help fr all of us that everyday work hard to spread the word on the fantastic wines that Portugal has...

Cheers

RichardA · 1 year ago

I would also recommend checking out a book that was just published within the last week or two, "Secrets of Social Media Marketing" by Paul Gillin. It essentially is a book for businesses about how to harness the Internet for marketing and advertising, touching on everything from blogs to Youtube. It addressess many of the fears and concerns that businesses have about using the Internet for marketing. It provides plenty of examples of sucess stories. It provides plenty of interesting statisitcs on Internet use.

Oscar Quevedo · 1 year ago

In my opinion, the word that explains the absence "Internet" in the report and also the absence of wineries doing social media marketing is AGE. In the wine business the average age of the people running wineries is very high, probably over fifty, with a huge lack of technological skills and still thinking Internet is too complicated. They don't even know what a blog is. And if they don't know or they don't understand how Internet works they will not accept the suggestions from the marketing guy to do social media marketing.

We have to wait and to be patient, because when the "traditional" wineries start to see the results in the "modern" wineries maybe they will want to understand what Internet can do for them...

troy · 1 year ago

I agree with the points here, but would add that it isn't enough just to "use" the internet. One has to put the same types of effort into internet promotion as one would put into traditional promotion and customer service. I just received an interesting 1967 tinto from a Ribatejo quinta, so I submitted a message on the quinta's website, asking about tasting notes from that vintage, plus availabilities of wines throughout the 60s and 70s as I was hoping to set up a vertical tasting. The response I got back was, "thanks for your message!" No response to the questions. So, instead of taking ten friends to stay in the quinta's lodge and have several meals plus the tasting, I'm just going to drink the wine and then forget about them. Good thing they have a website, right?

Ryan Opaz · 1 year ago

Without a doubt, you need to make sure to use the Internet to "augment" your other efforts. If you try to do all or nothing with any approach you will fail!

As to your experience, does it surprise you? :) So Sad, that something as simple as a return email is not understood!

troy · 1 year ago

ah...now I have vented and feel better. thanks for bearing with me!