Hoe verkoop je wijn het beste? Niet door in advertenties wijngaarden en wijnstokken te laten zien. Dan ga je uit van de productiekant. Maar je moet juist de consument aanspreken en hem aanzetten van wijn te genieten. Die sociale kant komt te weinig aan bod. Advertenties zijn ofwel te serieus of serieuze miskleunen, schrijft Andrew Rosenbaum voor Meininger. Lees wat hij erover opdiepte:

Many wine ads show vineyards, vines, soils and other wine production images. But is this effective to sell wine? Or could there be a more effective way to reach consumers?

Wine advertising increasingly falls into two categories: very serious, or seriously wacky. The serious advertising, which often involves shots of vineyards, and grapes and the setting sun, doesn’t work all that well anymore, advertising consultants say. The wacky, humorous ads, on the other hand, are good at getting consumer attention. But regardless of whether an ad is funny or not, one key to its effectiveness is whether it shows wine in a social context or not, and this applies to all advertising channels, including print, television, web advertising, viral, and the whole gamut of social media.

 

Production led

“In the past, wine advertising has not been about enjoying wine, but about producing it,” complains Fred Schwartz, a Napa Valley-based wine industry marketing consultant. “You have the impression that the client rammed this message down the agency’s throat, and then the creative people do their best to liven it up. It is not really effective.”

 

Milan-based wine advertising consultant Slawka G. Scarso says that wine advertising “is most effective when it puts the product into a social context – the ‘wacky’ ads do this very well, although that’s not the only effective approach,” He says that consumers, even in wine producing countries like Italy and France, don’t necessarily drink wine every day. Even when they do, they often drink cheap table wines. “The object of wine advertising is to get the consumer to upgrade to a better product,” he says. “To do this, the consumer has to be made to feel that it’s worth it, and that it’s something the consumer should drink in a relaxed social context.”

 

In the US the objective of a much successful advertising has been to make wine seem appropriate in informal, comfortable social contexts; to show that wine should not be just for special occasions. The trend has lasted for a long time; the number of regular wine drinkers in the US has more than tripled since 1960, which could explain why the humorous approach of much US wine advertising persists – it works.

 

Humour sells

In 1965, which was before many Americans drank wine, the most successful advertising campaign in the US history of wine took place on radio in five US cities. The campaign was for the German white wine Blue Nun, at the time owned by the H. Sichel Söhne winery near Mainz (today it is owned by the Erben-based producer Langguth). At the time, Blue Nun was a sweetish Liebfraumilch and it appeared in ads with a US comic duo, Jerry Stiller and Ann Meara, who would play on the wine’s name. Stiller and Meara both have lower-class accents, and appealed to a very broad audience, particularly in the urban US. In a typical exchange, Jerry says: “I noticed a little Blue Nun next to the fruit compote.” Anne replies: “It's probably Teresa Pensibini. We always knew she had