(Credit: Virgin website)
It’s a well-known fact that wine has become a global cultural phenomenon thanks to the trade globalization and the evolution of the New World. That’s why marketing and communication are becoming a crucial point and there is a need for personalized treatment to increase Spanish wine’s value as a unique product of style.
The best example can be found in the U.S. The work of many patient Californian winemakers trying to build a wine culture over the last 30 years has been titanic but they got what they wanted – today, the U.S. is considered the largest world wine market, in value and volume.
And if there are a few characteristics that stand out and differentiate the U.S. producers, they are an investment in packaging, marketing and design of the highest quality, as well as a great effort by the segmentation of the offerings and the particular character of each release. The result is that the average value of the wine bottle produced in the U.S. is much higher than many of the traditional producing countries, with hundreds of years of history and experience behind it.
Considering that wine, the good wine, is synonymous with time, patience, and talent, we might ask whether in Spain, one of the major powers of the wine world, put in value these factors when creating their brands. How do they sell their image? Are they consistent in deciding the marketing strategy?
In the times we live in, where speed and technology allow us to reach any corner of the world without the need of large infrastructure and where social networks communicate very effectively, wine has a hard communication task that forces it to transform its traditional vehicles and find new tools and gestures that allows a story to be told in an inspiring, attractive and seductive way.
Visitors who come to Spain, many of which are great wine lovers, are shocked to see the prices and quality. Wines chosen and selected have outrageously cheap prices, when compared to the prices paid for wine in the rest of Europe, America, and Asia.
Spain is probably the best country to drink very good quality wines at low prices. But are they communicating properly the value of what they offer?
We have to be honest, the Spanish wine image is sometimes boring and the message remains the same for decades. Barrels, terroirs, family, tradition … the ads, advertising and marketing are the same. But the consumer has changed, now wants to be a star, wants to try, experiment and make their own decisions.
In all its appellations of origin, without exception, Spain has the elements needed to succeed in the world of wine, both in volume and value: land, talent, and history. But they have to get rid of some complexes to build a quality image around these elements.
To do this, marketing should have a consistency with the heart and the objectives of the winery. The high value that design brings to the bottle, the natural cork, the label – they are perceptions that a consumer appreciates. Wine is an object of pleasure that is always associated with culture and good taste and must be communicated accordingly.
But there is great hope among those who love Spanish wine. The new generations of winemakers in Spain are producing better wine than had never be produced in the history of the industry, and understand now that the content is not enough to give value, but that marketing and design are key elements to define the price position in the market.
