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| October 22nd 2009 |
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| How the Millennials think |
from Meininger's Wine Business International
The under 30s are proving keenly interested in wine in the US – yet consumption among this same group is falling elsewhere. Can the wine industry recapture the interest of this group? Experts weigh in.
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Galatée Faivre has marketed French wine for more than 15 years, through her Paris-based company ID Vin. Her company has organised after work tastings to encourage young professionals to learn more about wine.
Wine professionals have to encourage new consumers under 30 to develop a greater understanding of wine and to taste it more regularly. This will enable to regulate their own consumption and understand all of the rules that surround wine. There are half as many family and business meals as there were 20 years ago. Over the last decade, eating habits have changed completely and dietary problems have become social issues.
The traditional meal, with wine on the table, and under the influence of a father or uncle or a friend who was a wine lover, provided an important way to transfer knowledge about wine. Wine is essentially a cultural product and that’s why it remains one of the keys to a diet that is of good quality, healthy, varied, social and balanced.
Young adults nowadays have palates that are saturated with too much salt or sugar. They are almost unable to recognise the subtle and natural aromas and flavours of wine. They have memorised the taste of Red Bull, but they have difficulty recognising the natural taste of red currant or wild strawberry, or the perfume of the lime blossom. That’s why we organised tastings after work in Paris, to help young adults memorise wine flavours in ways that are fun. This gave them greater confidence in themselves and their taste buds and an ability simply to appreciate wine.
If you learn about wine through appreciating flavours, and begin to want to taste better and better wines, the simple fact of appreciating the beverage and its subtleties creates a natural and cultural appreciation of the appropriate amount to drink.
Opening the consciousness of young adults to the taste of wine is one of the best possible protections against alcoholism. The lack of focus by wine professionals on young people over the past few years has allowed spirits brands to sponsor student evenings. This has in turn led to the kinds of alcohol-related problems we never had in the days when grandfathers introduced 15 years olds to wine tasting with the help of a glass of red or sparkling wine over a Sunday lunch.
To communicate better to young people, we also use the Internet, particularly the tasting videos to be found at www.videotasting.com. To sum up, abuse of any kind – alcohol, medicine, food or power – has dangerous implications for health. And understanding that is essential for anyone taking on the freedom that comes with adulthood.
Alex Heinrich, managing director, La Cave des Vignerons de Pfaffenheim, Alsace
It is in everybody’s interest to invest in the potential of young people. Even if young people view wine with a positive eye, they aren’t |
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accustomed to drinking it before entering the workforce. The marketing strategies of wine growing houses don’t make use of this favourable image and generally ignore 20 somethings. As they have limited means they prefer to concentrate on their chief markets (the over 35 or even over 50 age bracket). However the attitude of young people towards wine is changing, with them buying more of it when marketing takes an interest in them. The image of wine is generated by family tradition. We must encourage the development of a different approach to wine that young people will immediately adopt. Even if young people don’t entirely reject the idea of wine linked to gastronomy and tradition, they have trouble including it among their consumption habits.
On the contrary, the Internet and globalisation have made them very receptive to a hint of exoticism when it comes to products and their presentation. Hence their open mindedness with regard to wines from around the world. These products highlight their grape varieties, thereby helping to identify a taste, often complex in the case of terroir wines. Young people are generally open to discovering a wine bearing values that are more universal then those associated with a terroir. All these messages should be directly expressed by wine bottles to attract the attention of young people.
It is very important to call upon a design in line with their artistic values. Black Tie® by Pfaffenheim is just one example. Suitable containers such as boxed wine have also made good in-roads. There is no reason why other better adapted or more original forms and sizes of packaging shouldn’t seduce them thanks to their difference and their convenience. But these products still have to be marketed in places catering for young adults such as the new wine bars which have taken away wine’s sacred aura. These establishments have not only promoted wine tasting and but they have also made by-the-glass drinking popular.
Professor Larry Lockshin, wine marketing group, Ehrenberg Bass Institute of Marketing Science, University of South Australia
This topic is quite appropriate for all wine producers and wine marketers to consider. Millennials, or Generation Y is a very large cohort of potential wine buyers. In most countries they are as large as or even larger than the Baby Boomers, who are the main wine drinkers. In the US and in Australia these Millennials have become interested in wine and are already becoming significant consumers. In the UK and in mainland Europe there is less interest, so the marketing job is geared more to gaining awareness and interest in wine.
Our research in Australia has shown that Millennials purchase wine much like novice consumers, with not much knowledge or forethought. Their major purchase occasions are in bistros or fine dining restaurants. They tend to spend a bit more than low involvement consumers, but they are not as regular in their wine drinking as the |
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Baby Boomers. It is important for wineries to show the flexibility of wine for different occasions beyond dining in restaurants if we are to increase consumption among this group. Wine needs to be shown as fun and yet sophisticated.
Other research we have done points to the fact that many of the same kinds of events, like wine dinners, meet the winemaker, and visits to wineries are important to Generation Y wine buyers. However, marketers need to change how we communicate these events. Standard newsletters and advertising is not very effective. More emphasis needs to be placed on email and other electronic means of communication, including developing a Facebook page for the winery and even using Twitter.
But marketers need to remember that a very small proportion of potential buyers will actually subscribe and use these social marketing channels to gain information and follow a specific brand. These are necessary and very useful to communicate with those highly involved consumers. Wineries need to communicate more broadly as well in order to keep attracting new consumers. Since Millennials often buy wine on-premise, marketing through these outlets with promotional materials on the table, by the glass, wine dinners all remain very important to attract new customers.
Melissa Parker, director, The Mod Comms Group, a specialist wine PR and marketing company, based in Melbourne, Australia.
When marketing wine to the twenty something generation I believe there are a few items for consideration; specifically targeted marketing with particular focus on the social media phenomenon; format; and wine style. The Y generation is now almost entirely dependent on social media ie Twitter, Facebook and Myspace. For a wine brand to get in the minds of this age group it is important to be fully engaged and savvy with these new forms of media. At a recent Wine Communicators of Australia forum this exact topic was debated and the twenty something representatives reiterated the importance of a wine brand to be Twittering and at least have a presence on Facebook to achieve any kind of brand cut through with their age group. These forms of media can literally be talking directly to this demographic on an ongoing basis. Used effectively it is a marketer’s dream. Of course, direct marketing via mobile phones and email is also important. Gaining mobile phone numbers and email addresses via targeted promotions can provide an invaluable database for future brand marketing.
The wine industry could learn some marketing pointers from the spirit industry and the marketing strategies they execute for the pre-mixed drinks category of which the target demographic is primarily the 20 – 30 year olds. One of the pre-mixed brands I work with heavily sponsors outdoor music festivals over summer. This proves to be an excellent marketing exercise for their brand as the audience is almost entirely their target |
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demographic and the brand becomes synonymous with enjoyable experiences. This brings me to the issue of format – bottles of wine are cumbersome and not conducive with taking to parties and consuming at outdoor music festivals. The wine industry could do well to consider packaging wine in smaller more convenient serves.
Thirdly there is wine style, young palates take time to develop and appreciate the complexities of wine. Wines bridging the gap between the sweeter pre-mixed drinks and the more developed styles with higher levels of residual sugar do well with the younger age group. Wines with lighter levels of alcohol are also more likely to be appreciated by the younger generation for its lighter, more approachable palate.
Lastly, employ them. It is a rapidly changing world and what better way to understand this demographic thinks but to have them within your ranks. Who else understands the way Twitter works?
British entrepreneur Rowan Gormley, formerly of Virgin Wines, set up Naked Wines in 2008.
Who is a 30 year old more likely to trust?
a) The government
b) Their bank
c) The press
d) A big wine brand
e) A huge discount
f) Each other
The correct answer is (f), even if the “each others” in this case are complete strangers.
How do I know? Well, 36% of our customers are under 35. And one of the lovely things about being an online business is you can see what people do, as opposed to what they say.
What endless focus groups say is that they want value for money, blah, blah, blah. What real people actually want are authentic wines (as opposed to manufactured brands) with a talking point. The ability to say “I bet you’ve never tried this before” far outweighs the “I got it half price” in the boasting rights stakes.
So why isn’t everyone doing it? Well, it is not quite as easy as asking for customers to rate wines, although that’s a start. Customers also want relevance. For example, if they are considering a Rioja, they don’t just want to know what the average customer thinks. They want to know what other customers who like Rioja think.
And if you go down this path, you need to accept that there will be a lot of people who don’t like your wines and will tell everyone that. The bad news is that if you edit the bad reviews out, nobody believes the good reviews
So what should you do if you want to sell to 30 year olds and you are....
a) A wine retailer? Capture people’s preferences, don’t edit them and be brave
b) A multinational? Give up.
c) A small winemaker wanting to break into the UK market, without wasting your time and money on building a brand nobody is going to value? Call us.
And finally, don’t call them Millennials. Or any other collective noun for that matter. Individuality counts!
A shorter version of this article appeared in Meininger’s Wine Business International, October 2009. The magazine is only available by subscription.
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