Analysis and data to help you buy and sell better
If you take a look through any Top 100 lists for the best TV adverts of all time then drinks brands would take more than fair share. But the challenge to find new and exciting ways to engage with consumers gets tougher ever year as there are more ways to communicate. Here’s our final pick of the Top 10 Drinks adverts we believe are doing more than most to rise to those challenges.
As we continue our summer season of articles looking at different aspects of rosé, in association with Castel Frères, we rewind the clock and re-visit this article by Anne Krebiehl MW on how to manage rosé on wine lists. Too often rosé is subjected to tokenism on the average list, but by carefully choosing a wider range, and focusing in on what consumers are really looking for then rosé could become a significant new revenue driver your business.
The jury might be well and truly out on how well the wine industry is marketing itself to consumers, but there are plenty of examples of how well other sectors of the drinks industry are doing. Here The Buyer picks out the Top 10 Drinks Adverts so far this year that we think are really succeeding in catching the fickle attention of their target audiences starting with our first five choices.
Roger Jones goes on a quest to find out what is really driving South Africa’s Old Vine Project? Is it a marketing ploy to enter the UK premium wine scene? Or are wines from Old Vines generally better and more interesting than wines that are made from younger vines? And if that is the case… Why is that and How are the wines different?
You would think it would be hard to ship tens of millions of litres of bulk wine around the world and not be noticed, but unless you go looking the bulk wine industry operates very much under the radar of the mainstream wine trade. Which is why the International Bulk Wine & Spirits Show, that held its first event in the US last month and is coming to London in January, offers a fresh new debating and networking forum for those tasked in bringing those wines to market.
Justin Keay visits Abruzzo to discover whether this much-maligned region of Italy has a future in making quality wines, and getting international recognition for doing so. This is the only DOC in Italy where bottling can take place outside the region, a practice that is playing into the hands of the cooperatives that many believe are dragging the image of Abruzzo down.
Given the choice on-trade wine buyers would love to travel the world and source wines directly themselves. But few have the time to do so. Fortunately they are able to turn to those businesses that can in a market where companies of the scale of Lanchester Wines are able to source, ship, develop, bottle and deliver exclusive wines just for you. Richard Siddle travelled to Durham to find out how it works.
Two years ago few people outside those wine suppliers and producers directly serving Bargain Booze or Wine Rack would necessarily have heard of Conviviality PLC. But now with the acquisitions of Matthew Clark and Bibendum PLB it is now turning over more than £1.5 billion a year. Richard Siddle looks at its first year of trading as a combined group and says the biggest worry for its competitors lies in the future synergies and cost savings it is down to make.
For all the gold medals and plaudits that English wines receive at international wine competitions it does not alway warrant them any more space on premium on-trade wine lists. They still have to go up against the quality, and most of all price points, that wine buyers can get from the rest of the world. To assess what buyers think of English wine and to compare different styles with their international peers, The Vintner hosted a special tasting and debate with The Buyer.
Victor Smart travels to Portugal to discover what the key players in the cork industry are doing to try and ensure that their corks are 100% taint-free. A professor at Amorim believes that they have the most common taint, TCA, licked while the President of the Portuguese Cork Association believes that the booming Chinese market may indirectly swing preferences in screw cap-friendly markets back to cork.
