What's in a name?

Critics may dismiss them but wine brands will put your pub customers at ease.

'The trouble with wine is that it is a much more complex subject than most people imagine.' ​Jane McQuitty, The Times, February 26, 2006​

For some reason this statement by one of the UK's best known wine writers caught my eye. Why? Because it's all wrong. Why is it that so many wine writers like to make wine unapproachable? There is an element of the card-shark magician about them as they throw all kinds of obstacles and misdirection at you to ensure you don't see the obvious point in front of you. And as a result people are intimidated by wine. This is especially true in pubs.

Wine is only as "complex" as you want to make it. If you want to introduce a complicated wine offer into your pub which requires a high level of staff knowledge coupled with a major endeavour to maintain the quality, then go right ahead. But unless wine is your passion and you have excellent wine knowledge you are making a mistake. To introduce a successful wine offer you need to take small, simple steps.

Over the next three weeks I shall be looking at some simple and basic issues surrounding wine to try and help improve your offer.

Adam Withrington

There is an apocryphal story of a marketing team from a major UK wine brand owner having dinner with some representatives from a niche wine merchant. The merchant spent the whole meal berating the marketing team, telling them brands were destroying wine and how they were nothing but sell-outs.

The brand owner's response? "We're just giving the public what they want…"

There is an essential truth to this story. The public want brands. But they are not popular among the great and the good of the wine trade. In beer, spirits and soft drinks the definition of success is to be branded. To get your lager on a big attractive font on the bar top, or your vodka on the spirits rail, shows you have a powerful brand and you have found the definition of commercial success.

But branding just doesn't seem to fit wine's profile in many ways. Big marketing campaigns and lack of diversity don't quite match wine's je ne sais quoi. Countless wine writers wage their own personal war against brands. Only last year Tim Atkin referred to all wine brands in his column in The Observer as "bottled blandness".

But it is time to look at the bigger picture - while the experts may not like brands they are vital for pubs. They have now become the most essential part of a pub's wine offer because they are the wines that will attract new drinkers into the category.

And here are some reasons why:

• The growing popularity of brands:​ According to the latest AC Nielsen statistics branded wine in the on-trade was growing at six per cent in the year to January 2006, outperforming both the total on-trade wine market - which is growing at two per cent - and non-branded wine, which is growing at only one per cent.

Brands are a stepping stone to consumer knowledge:​ Pierpaolo Petrassi is not only the senior wine buyer for wholesaler Waverley TBS, but also a Master of Wine. He approves of brands for what they are - a starting point for consumers.

"Brands in the on-trade are the epitome of what a brand should be - to act as a signpost for the less experienced consumer," he says. "When you go up to the bar you have three to four seconds to decide what to have. If that pub is not offering smart and attractive wines on the back-bar with well-known brands then the consumer will be forced away from wine."

Brands give consumers confidence:​ Myles Doran, marketing manager at the Barracuda Group, is absolutely sold on the idea of brands. "It is important to offer
customers the security blanket of branded wines - and that is how they see them," he says.

This belief is backed up by Nick Elkin, business unit manager for the leisure division at E&J Gallo. "Brands make the category easy to understand," he argues. "They give the consumer confidence and encouragement."

And Pierpaolo feels that increasing consumer confidence around wine is of huge importance. "The big thing that drives wine consumption at the moment is people's fear of making mistakes in front of others. Getting these people on that first rung of the ladder is the most important thing and you can do this through branded wines."

People like the familiarity of brands they see in the off-trade:​ "In the off-trade people are much more confident about wine," says Myles. "They will take their time and look at the labels. But in the on-trade they are much more self-conscious. Very few people will confidently ask questions to staff about wine. So they do need that comfort zone of branded wines. The fact is the masses want branded wines."

There are those in the wine trade who see brands as fundamental to the future of wine in pubs. Clare Griffiths, vice-president of brands marketing at Constellation Europe, says: "The on-trade has witnessed the runaway success of brands in the off-trade and so recognize the huge growth potential that brands have to offer and understand that brands are absolutely key to growing the on-trade wine category."

But, brand owners do need to do more to engage licensees and the trade.

Constellation Europe has been one of the few to really try and engage the licensed trade with its World of Wine campaign.

But there is very little visibility of the big brands. Wine has got so big that Hardy's and Jacob's Creek should be as visible around bars and in the trade press as Carling and Stella Artois.

But the fact remains, that while press releases and phone calls from brand PRs flood in to The Publican every day, hardly any are to do with wine brands. This really should not be the case.

Wine is one of the fastest growing drinks categories in the on-trade sector and yet that seems to be happening despite the wine industry rather than because of it.

Conclusion​

One of the big arguments against having branded wines in pubs is that they are undermined by supermarkets, who discount the big brands, meaning consumers are unhappy to pay the higher prices charged in pubs.

But as Pierpaolo puts it: "You can't bank percentage margin, you can only bank cash." Too often the focus is on potential sales rather than actual sales. Focus on what you have got and how you can sell more of it, rather than playing with the figures.

Now this is not to say go mad with brands and stock nothing but the big names. But it really should form the basis of your offer.