Fanciful wine predictions or genuinely new?

In the year when the greatest show on earth, the Olympic Games, will come to town, and England yet again hopes to triumph at the UEFA European Championships, when celebration could or should be sweeping the country, what will we be drinking in 2012?

Adrian Tierney-Jones from the Telegraph suggests it could be the year craft beers continue to come of age, wine cocktails will open up new frontiers of flavour and we’ll be drinking at “pop up bars”. So if you’ve got a taste for the slightly more exotic or you’ve ever wondered how to make your own beer, cider or fruit wine, then 2012 could be the year to try out your own DIY tipple-making creations. During the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, Gin made from 10 carefully selected botanicals or a wine cocktail blended with vodka and Chardonnay could even take your fancy!

These predictions might sound a bit far-fetched, but when looking at the pub scene, Adrian suggests a rejuvenated consumer interest in 2012 propelled by renewed interest and availability of quality real ale and craft beers to offset the issues faced in the sector. The growth and strength of so-called ‘craft beer bars’ such as Cask in London and Port Street Beer House in Manchester suggest he’s hit the nail on the head with that one.  

One certain prediction for the year. 2012 will be challenging for the drinks sector! The state of the economy means maintaining let alone increasing market share will be occupying brands. Enticing cash strapped consumers to part with their money will mean consumers balance quality and price more than ever before. The drinks industry will need to keep their audience of sippers happy by offering innovative options and value-oriented choices without compromising quality. Here’s to hoping an austere New Year moves over to a summer of celebration.  

Posted by Shelly Murphy

The reader of the (crisp) pack

We all know how important the description on the packet is when it comes to food. At Phipps we’ve been crunching our way through a hell of a lot of crisps lately, all in the name of research of course, to get under the skin of what drives consumer purchasing in this category. It appears semantics have never been so important when it comes to making that decision on which bag to pick up. It comes as no surprise to us food and wine PRs that descriptions are so important when selling food, as for us the language we use on a daily basis is vital in getting across key messages to the media for our clients.

Our research shows that the language used on crisp packets makes a huge difference in how consumers perceive the brand. We quizzed one hundred people, asking them to select which crisp description would make them want to purchase a bag of crisps the most. A whopping 47% of people picked the winning description ‘Full on Flavour: made from the finest ingredients. 100% natural flavour crisps’. Given that flavour and taste came up as the key motivator in crisp purchasing, we found that those descriptions not referencing flavour and provenance fell foul with our respondents.

Alongside our crisp survey we ran two in-depth focus groups. Our groups of boys and girls (aged 18-55) also showed that neither gender seem to care for health and nutrition labelling on packaging when buying sharing bags of crisps. The general consensus being that in a social occasion you are less worried about calories and salt content. Nearly all of our focus group respondents looked at labelling on 30g bags of crisps however, allowing this information to affect their purchasing decisions. With the government pushing for more nutritional information on food packs, it will be interesting to see if crisp manufacturers bring traffic light labelling to the front of sharing bags of crisps in the future.

For PRs language is our toolbox and selecting which tools to use can be the difference between a successful PR campaign and one that falls on deaf ears. No doubt the annual festival ‘Rioja Tapas Fantasticas’ which we run for Wines from Rioja wouldn’t have proved quite so successful had we named it ‘The London Tapas Festival’. Whilst consumers respond to one set of language, what can appeal to media may be quite different. Call it spin doctoring if you must, but effective PR is an art form few brands can afford to do without. 

Posted by Rachael Everitt

Why going niche could go mainstream

We don’t need to tell you there’s an economic crisis going on – we all know it. But with the biggest and best London Cocktail Week just gone and higher than expected results from major distillers it seems the spirits market is well and truly bucking the trend. Admittedly, alcohol is what the Financial Times calls a “defensive sector that carries on selling through the downturn”, though it’s clear the sector is not immune to thrifty consumers and is facing tough times. A closer look at the sector reveals that growth is actually driven by a small number of categories within the spirits sector, namely higher quality and premium brands. This seems utterly counterintuitive at a time when logic dictates that we should be tightening our belts and trading down, not trading up to more expensive drinks.

An explanation comes in form of James Harkin’s book Niche: Why the market no longer favours the mainstream. He defines a niche product as one most people don’t want but one that is ideally suited for the people who do (subsequently, James argues that any loss of volume should be offset by a widening of value sales and profit margins from the market “sweet spot” – consumers who are willing to pay more for the privilege). The key is to avoid being “stuck in the middle” and one way we believe for drinks brands to avoid the dreaded middle is to position themselves as affordable luxury, a very niche positioning since consumers may not be able to splash out on a 5-star holiday, but a high-quality spirit is still attainable. The trouble is if everyone’s doing it the niche may become the mainstream. 

Posted by Lucy Richardson

Celebrity wines – cheap marketing ploy or democratisation of wine?

So AC/DC is the latest band in a long line of famous names to bring out their own wine – a smart attempt to influence a more sophisticated fan base or a ‘highway to hell’ for the winery? PR-wise it’s certainly been successful in generating column inches – a famous name always helps when it comes to the holy grail of wine coverage off the wine columns, but in terms of brand image can a celebrity wine ever really be credible? It’s far from a new phenomenon with Olivia Newton John bringing out her Koala Blue range of Australian wines back in 1983 and Gerard Depardieu – he of the recent ‘oui,oui’ scandal - working for over thirty years with French wineries. Our insight suggests that like any sponsorship or endorsement it all comes down to matching brand values and publics. Francis Ford Coppola, with a long family history of winemaking and a high-brow fan base has managed to achieve both critical acclaim and financial success for the Californian wineries that he owns. On the other hand, wine enthusiasts are likely to shun the vinous offerings of Madonna and AC/DC, but if their wines open up the world of wine to a new audience of music fans then surely it has to be a good thing, with one proviso – the quality has to match up to the price. Charging a huge premium for a poor quality wine just because it has a photo of a famous person on the front will do nothing in the long term for the image of the wine or the personality – who could forget the moment that Sir Cliff Richard described his own wine as ‘tainted and inspid’ on the ‘F-Word’?

Posted by Anna Harris-Noble

The truth about alcohol brands and social media. And nothing but the truth!

Not a week goes by that we here at Phipps won’t shake our heads at yet another piece of contradictory so-called research. This week’s winning entry comes courtesy of the Daily Mail and claims that 'alcohol brands are exploiting Facebook, Twitter and YouTube by 'targeting young people with drink campaigns’. Now, with some of us being mothers ourselves we’re the first to back any initiative that stops underage drinking. But we’re at a slight loss as to what to believe when only last week research in The Drinks Business claimed that 'social media presence is “not important” to drinks consumers'. Time for some sense-making we think. Already five years ago the amazing futurologist Richard Watson talked about us being increasingly “subjected to multiple truths (one minute coffee is going to kill you, the next it’s a miracle cure) and fed a seemingly endless diet of half-truths from companies that want to sell us something”. Looking closer at the Daily Mail story it becomes clear that Alcohol Concern is behind the research, while the contradicting piece of research in The Drinks Business stems from a digital agency obviously touting for more business from drinks brands. In both cases it’s not hard to spot the hidden agenda but the questions remains – is social media to blame for underage drinking or simply not a factor? We believe that social media in its purest form is nothing else than a reflection of what’s going on in society anyway so it’s neither the cure nor the cause. If anything, pretty much any drinks brands in the UK is bound by guidelines set out by the Drinkaware campaign that aims to increase awareness and understanding of the role of alcohol in society, therefore offering a much needed balance to alcohol-related internet crazes like drowning bottles of wine and posting it on YouTube. And as for the confusing research in the media we’re with Benjamin Franklin on this one who remarked that “half a truth is often a great lie.” 

Posted by Toby Schuster

Drinks brands mustn’t ignore social media

So apparently social media presence is “not important” to drinks consumers according to research published in The Drinks Business. Well, we at Phipps would beg to differ and we question the one dimensional interpretation of the facts. If value for money is what matters most to consumers then are we the only ones who are tracking a dramatic increase in money-off vouchers and promotions spread via Facebook and Twitter?

Yes, the fact remains that social media rarely leads to direct sales and the research concludes correctly that social media “is not a space for hard sell”. That’s true for drinks companies and equally true for any other consumer-facing brand. Recent research from analyst house Forrester indicates that less than 2% of online orders were the result of shoppers coming from a social network (via Mashable). Brand owners need to judge social media for what it’s good at which is facilitating conversations between consumers, and between consumers and brands. If done correctly social media is invaluable in creating greater brand loyalty, encouraging repeat purchase and driving recommendation. And for what it’s worth, we think that should be important to drinks brands.  

Posted by Toby Schuster