A lot, actually. Good design grants a wine a measure of distinction in the marketplace, and effective differentiation sells wine. Good design tells your personal story with an economy of words and symbols. Aesthetics do matter.
But of the top 5 factors that determine how a wine sells, I’m not sure where I’d rank label design. I tend to think that good wine sells wine, that positive word of mouth sells wine, that good reviews sell wine, and that good value sells wine. The blogosphere seems to agree (hat tip Dr. Vino). Consumers decisions to buy wine are affected by many things, and packaging is surely an influence - the question for us is: How much are we willing to pay for "good" design?
CF/NAPA, a leader in wine label design based in Napa, charges anywhere from $20,000 to $200,000 (most jobs cost between $25-65,000), which includes printing and market research. That’s quite a lot of cash for a family winery.
So more than likely we’ll be designing the label in house and paying only for printing. Luckily we’re a creative bunch and Becky has a great eye for color so I’m confident we’ll come up with a solid design. And that way we can put that cash into things that help us make better wine, like more French barrels and an extra forklift.
My advice is to look at lots and lots of labels while you think about yours. There’s a lot to be said for bold labels with simple graphic or typographic elements — look at Ridge, for example, or Foxen. I think you are right that you don’t have to spend $20K on label design.
Did you see the article in Winebusiness about different types of wine consumers? It does relate to bottle design because the label communicates to the customer what your attitude is about wine. You might take into consideration what your various designs might “say” to the different types of wine buyers. Is it very serious, is it very goofy and fun, it is comforting and homey, is it pretentious.
Think Bonny Doon, their labels perfectly reflect their attitude.
Consumers make a decision about a wine based on what they know. If they can’t taste it before buying it, then their mind uses whatever information is can gather (price, varietal, where it’s made, and the attitude of the label.) They make a decision based on that.
By the way, I don’t work for the company that did the research for Constellation, but that is the business I am in- consumer segmentation and brand management. (shoot me.)
http://winebusiness.com/html/InsiderCover.cfm
wineguy - That’s exactly what we’re doing. I coughed up for Icon: The Art Of The Wine Label and have gotten a few good ideas. The most compelling of which is that Etude, Flowers, Stag’s Leap Winery etc are simple, elegant, and inexpensive.
Adam - I did see that article. Small producers like us can do very little else besides niche marketing (target-market strategy) though. Our best bet is PR and direct contact with consumers. You’re absolutely right that consumers make a decision based on wines that they know. That’s part of the reason I write this blog, to try and introduce our brand to wine lovers. I also just love writing about wine!
Thanks for the advice from an industry pro!
I just found this page: Wine Labels. This guy has scanned his collection of wine labels and put them up. Click on Label Index for a list of all of them.
When you’re small, you don’t have to worry about how your label works on a store shelf (go into Molsberry Market or Safeway in Santa Rosa and take a look at a couple hundred bottles side-by-side on a shelf) - but it’s something to keep in mind for later.
The purpose (IMHO) is to visually distinguish wines from your winery in the mind of the people who buy it and recommend it to their friends. Something authentic and (perhaps) clever, that people will remember and talk about (see Seth Godin’s Purple Cow)
And I think it should be fun.
wineguy - Sweet! Love the wine labels page.
Mike - (great site by the way) I have an intense appreciation for good design, I love everything to do with the wine asthetic. And someday I hope we have a line item inour budget for label design that includes a payment to a firm like CF/NAPA. Right now though, all of our stuff will be handcrafted (cliche alert!) in every sense. Hopefully we can do better than this at least!
[...] Soon after we turned our attention toward creating our label, and we are currently in the middle of that process. We have a logo designed by the wonderful Dayna, AKA The Calligraphy Lady whose exquisite hand lettering has been featured in magazines such as Martha Stewart, Better Homes and Gardens and Cosmo. She created a couple of great logos for us; so good in fact we couldn’t decide between them. So, being a blogger, I placed them both on the blog and asked for feedback. We received lots, as well as other helpful suggestions that made it quite easy for us to make our final decision. Currenly we are designing our label, iterations of which we will be posting for comment shortly. [...]