The Wine World is Flat
Posted by Ben Chinn on November 19th, 2008
We’ve talked about the changing nature of of marketing and consumer involvement here before, but a post at California Life got me thinking about the topic again. In general I believe that the movement toward a flatter more inclusive market empowers consumers and weakens the power of producers and marketers to shape their audience’s perceptions. When word of mouth is amplified and given wings by a global communication platform like the internet, it dwarfs the unilateral broadcast muscle of marketers.
Wineries may be uniquely positioned to take a more active role in the conversation. Thanks to the popularity of tasting rooms consumers are already used to the idea of talking directly to the wine producer and being educated by her. Wine drinkers crave information about what they are drinking and wineries have the opportunity to participate in the space that folks like Gary Vaynerchuk have already rushed into.
The hardest part of this is going to be that wine producers will have to trade the safe turf of their own tasting rooms and converse with consumers on an equal footing – on the internet there are no pourers, just fellow drinkers.
