Beverage Dynamics is the largest national business magazine devoted exclusively to the needs of off-premise beverage alcohol retailers, from single liquor stores to big box chains, through coverage of the latest trends in wine, beer and spirits.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/303900
38 Beverage Dynamics • May/June 2014 www.beveragedynamics.com increasingly clean look. "We used to be big on price cards a while ago, but it became a vision blocker, and all of a sudden you had them there on cases, and a back card that might stick up two to four feet," he said. "If you do that consistently, you can't see across the store." Not that every brand requires it—Fetzer's national cam- paign, for example, already trumpeted recent accolades, and featured brightly colored end-caps with large images of the bottles that created a high-visibility billboard effect without clutter. It was an easy fi t for Liquor Barn. On the other hand, bigger is better at Gary's Wine and Marketplace in New Jersey, which includes two 13,000-square- foot stores and a 24,000-square-foot fl agship "It can't just be a fi ve-case stack against the wall," said gen- eral manager and wine buyer Brian Maxwell. "We like to do big 60-to-80-case displays, to draw plenty of attention, with a story behind it. A small display just gets swallowed up." Previous displays include a gigantic Rex Goliath rooster and huge bear from Toasted Head, which dominated the fl oor for the month to two months they were up. Though they didn't literally tower over the store, other successful marketing tie-ins emphasized bright visuals and hard-to-miss props, like Skinnygirl's Oscars-season promotions, or Kenneth Crawford's Fashion Week display, which also included a red carpet, velvet ropes, and a raffl e for tickets to New York City Fashion Week events. TRYING TO BREAK NEW GROUND At Constellation, one strategy was to break new ground on the in- creasingly crowded wine-marketing calendar. While promotions for brands like Sutter Home focused on summer, Constellation made a move to own October, with a Halloween-themed promotion for its limited-edition Ravenswood Besieged, which began in 2013. "It allowed our retail partners to work with Constellation to cre- ate some pretty exciting 'retailtainment' and really energized wine sales during that often-overlooked holiday," Mike Novy, Constella- tion's senior vice president of channel management, said. Bolstered by a strong national social-media push, the Besieged off-premise-marketing materials mirrored the gloomy bottle label's graphic of ravens circling over a fi eld on a cloudy day--an image that ties into the history of the Ravenswood vineyard itself. De- pending on the needs of the particular retailers, the in-store mar- keting might include serving cards, tasting notes, table tents, and everything from bottle toppers and neckers to end-cap and large fl oor displays. When it came to selling its wine line, the Skinnygirl brand (founded by reality star Bethenny Frankel and now a Beam property) already had a established and distinc- tive image, a clear understanding of its target demographic (women ages 30 to 39 who do most of their wine shop- ping at larger supermarket and drugstore chains), and a dominant lead in a niche market that it itself created. Part of moving Skinnygirl wine bottles depended on fi nding the right occasions to market around — Mother's Day, for example, was obvious. But by harnessing insights into its consumers — pop-culture fans who love to host parties — Skinnygirl also planted its fl ag down on the entertainment industry's awards season. Inside retail stores, branded wine racks, case cards, shelf toppers and other materials featured the easily recognized Skinnygirl silhouette morphed into a golden Oscar-like statuette, while customers could sit in a Skinnygirl-branded director's chair or take sample packs of Orville Redenbacher popcorn from an old- fashioned, Skinnygirl-branded popcorn machine, all positioned atop an actual red carpet. "Our consumer is very much about adding that right twist to her entertaining occasion — the low-calorie option for herself and the people she's hosting," said Kelly Georgetti, activation director for Skinnygirl Cocktails. "From the marketing perspective, it's all about the way we highlight the portfolio to her." PARTNERING WITH A CELEBRITY Rather than pinning the marketing to a specifi c time of year, Trea- sury Wine Estate's Chateau St. Jean wines appeals to consumer's ears as well as their palates, with a partnership with nine-time Grammy winner Sheryl Crow that was announced in July 2013. "We have a philosophy which is, 'Big brands need to have big communications platforms," said Barry Sheridan, vice president of marketing, Americas, for TWE. "And those communcations plat- forms are especially good if they work both above the line and below the line and build our sales velocity." Skinnygirl wine trumpeted its Academy Awards tie-in with these point-of-sale materials. Examples of two seasonal mass displays of Menage a Trois wines from Trinchero Family Estates.