Stormhoek: "The best South African wine for the money, end of story"

I was in Asda this morning (I never normally go to Asda) and noticed that they've got a few Stormhoek wines included in their 3 for £10 offer. I've not heard much about Stormhoek recently, but their story is an interesting one (and I've always liked their strapline. I'm a sucker for the plain and simple. Ronseal anyone?)

It's a South African wine company that went from selling very little to shifting big volumes back in 2005/6 ish driven predominantly by whats a really unusual approach for the wine trade - blogging and social networking. They've had a pretty hard time since, their UK distribution arm, Orbital, went under at the beginning of last year. Anyway it prompted me to look them up and see what's going on, as they seem to have adopted a new packaging design - which I'm not much of a fan of. The back label's still pretty good, but that aside I don't think the new bottle style says much about the personality of the brand. And personality is the main thing Stormhoek has going for it.

The current Stormhoek website contains some interesting links but it doesn't really tell you much. I really liked the quirkiness and irreverance of Stormhoek when it first appeared, there aren't many (any?) wine brands around that have been able to create that kind of personality in a way that appears genuine - without being naff. And I think it's a personality that can really appeal to a certain sort of consumer - especially the younger/less experienced/less involved drinkers that are voiced as a key target for so many wine businesses. It's a shame that Stormhoek's personality seems to have been diluted...........

Stormhoek
Stormhoek South Africa

Naked wine

I love the concept of Rowan (original founder of Virgin Wines) Gormley's new venture - Naked Wine - it's an interesting way of bringing the winemaker and the drinker closer together and involving the consumer in the product in a way that's friendly and unpatronising, without dumbing it down.

Who's the target....?

Simplistic maybe, infact some might go as far to say blindingly obvious - but a book I was reading this week got me thinking with this statement "there are only 2 ways to sell more of your brand: 1) get the people who already buy it to buy more, 2) get the people who DON'T buy it already to start buying it.

The wine industry seems to spend a lot of time trying to do 1) - and very little energy ever seems to be devoted to 2) . Infact those who do stick their head above the parapet to start talking about how to bring new consumers into the category are often met with looks that are probably described as disdain at best.

True, a relatively small number of the total wine drinking population in both the UK and US currently accounts for the vast proportion of spend. But what about all the people who don't currently drink wine? Do we even know why they don't drink wine? Is it as simple as a preference for the taste of beer or spirits, or is it better explained as a lack of affinity - or a combination of the two?

We could carry on hypothesising, but right now I dont think there's much for us to draw on here other than intuition. And lets face it, a lot of people in the wine industry are just too passionate and engaged in wine to intuitively get into the head of someone for whom wine just isn't relevant.

It would be interesting to know if anyone has ever actually gathered any real data about all these non-wine drinkers. Because unless we understand them, arguably we could be missing out on 50% of the opportunities to increase volumes.