I’m going to interrupt my pinot recipe series here. My apologies in advance for slipping back into wine marketing, but it’s what I’ve been dealing with all week and I thought I’d share.
Wine Packaging is Sad
I’ll get this out of the way right up front - direct to consumer wine packaging is pretty sad. Un-thoughtful. Minimalist (ok, cheap). Underwhelming.
Paradoxically, direct is where we producers make our best margins. It’s the place we can most afford to give our best customers a memorable, positive experience. And yet where do all the marketing dollars go? Why, to programming and incentives for corrupt distributors, and toward label and box designs aimed at retail.
As an industry we’ve got it all backwards. Sure, retail is competitive and to stand out you really need to loose the hounds (and the wallet) on the marketplace. But what message are you sending to your direct customers, your “brand ambassadors”, when your $80 pinot arrives unceremoniously in a plain brown box, with nothing other than a receipt inside to show that human thought ever actually entered into the packaging process?
I’ll tell you the message you’re sending.
“Hi there. You’re a high margin customer and we’d like to keep you that way. We might send you some expensive vintage announcement cards to entice you to buy, but once you’ve forked over the cash we’d like to keep it in our pocket, thank you very much. Enjoy the wine Mr. Direct Customer because that’s what you paid for, not a pretty package.”
I think that view is pretty myopic. These direct folks need to be nurtured and cherished. We need to pet them lovingly, and often.
Consider posts like this over at Vinography entitled “When Wine Tastes The Best“. Think back on the last time you had a really great, transcendent glass of wine. Chances are it had less to do with the quality of the wine in the glass than it did with what was going on in your life at the moment. It’s all about experience.
Why then are we sending plain brown boxes to folks forking over luxury prices for a bottle of juice? After all there’s a reason a Tiffany’s box is green (or blue - what heck colors is that!?), and it doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the silver inside. It’s all about the experience, managing the expectation of what lies within. And it’s an experience that we can help direct with creative packaging.
Sure it will cost more. Sure it will take effort. But aren’t direct customers worth it? And isn’t the payoff worth it? If people are happy, wine just tastes better. That’s good for the customer, good for the brand and good for the bottom line.
Hey Josh, you are certainly correct that direct packaging is pretty lame, with the exceptions being very rare. In fact, the only direct-shipped package I’ve seen that had any real brand identity on it was from Sea Smoke.
So, there are early adopters of the direct-to-consumer packaging love-fest.
–R
Hey Randy,
Yeah, Seasmoke does send an unsigned card and their box has their logo on it - but that’s pretty meager if you ask me.
There is SO much room for improvement (and I intend to take advantage
).
Josh,
You go with your bad self, brother!
–R
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I don’t know, Josh. You’re right about the experience affecting the wine. For instance, a really good tasting room experience makes a customer more likely to buy. However, the packaging is just that. When I used to pack up wine shipments, I’d put a personal note in if we’d made a good connection. But a box is a box is a box. You know? They probably take the wine out and store it immediately, tossing the box into recycling.
Heya Farley,
I hear you about packaging. It all ends up in the garbage after all…or does it?
I have almost every single one of the boxes from my Apple products. Part of the reason is that I might have to take them in/back for service someday, but I think there might be other reasons as well. Indeed, people have written whole articles on the experience of opening the packages of certain products like Apple because the experience so perfectly matches what the brand is all about: elegance, thoughtfulness and simplicity.
I’m no Jonathan Ive or any of the other creative geniuses that work at Apple, but the bar in direct packaging is so low I don’t think I have to be.
In the end though, the “experience” has to be more than a logo, more than cardboard, and more than simple utility. It has to be a seamless process of going from anticipating the wine in the box, to opening the box and being surprised and humored by the thoughtfulness therein, to finally clutching the wine sure in the knowledge that it has made it into your hands in perfect condition.
If Capozzi can deliver *that* experience I think we will have gone a long way toward being remarkable. And that’s the ultimate goal.
Thanks again for the comment!
I’ve been enjoying reading your blog lately. Love the Pinot recipe posts. Great stuff.
Anyway, regarding packaging, I think you’re right about how uninteresting it has become. However, one winery that I think does an excellent job of direct to consumer is Navarro. I’ve been a wine club member of theirs for nearly 15 years now. Besides the fantastic wines, their appeal, at least for me, is the personal touch. It doesn’t take much and doesn’t even have to cost a lot. For example, every shipment I’ve ever received from them has included a hand-written note on the box right by the shipping label. There’s always a newsletter inside that I usually read cover-to-cover and once a year there’s a non-wine gift (olive oil, smoked sea salt, apron, …).
I realize that there’s probably a difference between how wine club members and direct sales customers may be handled but of all the wine clubs I belong to, I’d give up all of them before canceling my Navarro membership. It’s the only one where I don’t feel like a number on a customer sheet. There’s got to be something to be learned there.
I’m a wine packaging junkie, but I’ve never given much thought to the shipping boxes. By the time the box arrives in the mail, it’s usually dirty and battered, so what’s the point of spending good money on a cool shipper? I’d rather have wineries put their money into the actual wine packaging, and the wine itself. Having said that, I did see a really cool shipper designed to look like it’s wrapped in old-fashioned brown paper and tied with string. I can’t remember the winery though, which says something about its marketing value, I guess.
Hi Tina,
That dirty box problem is dealt with by having the “well designed” box arrive in a plain brown shipping box. I agree, I wouldn’t go through all the effort if the thing was going to get all beat to hell during the shipping process. Also, at least to me, packaging is more than just the exterior box - it’s what’s inside as well. Hand signed notes, literature, temp trackers, the “experience” of opening the thing etc. And of course the wine has to live up to hype for any of this to work. I’m assuming very high quality.
Your example of not remembering the winery that had the nice packaging is instructive. I would just say that “pretty” shouldn’t really be the goal. Creating an experience that takes the customer’s desires into account, is thoughtful and elegantly presented is the goal.
Hey, I’ll send you a prototype when I get one made so you can see what I’m talking about!
As always, thanks for the comments Tina!
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Josh, please do send me your prototype–and make sure there’s Pinot in it! (:
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