I was wrong…computers can taste wine! (well…not exactly)
Many years ago, I found myself in the company of a friend and the CEO of renowned Sonoma winery, sipping on wine and discussing the elusive concept of wine brand success. As I confidently expounded my theories on what single traits make a wine brand truly successful, my friend, a driving force behind his winery's prominence, gave me a smile and uttered, "Peter, I don't think you know."
Over the years, I've come to realize that what my friend was trying to convey is that wine brand success isn't defined by a single element. This complexity arises from the fact that—as I stressed in my last post—fine wine is ultimately meant for human consumption, and predicting human economic behavior is tricky business. Just ask your finance friends who still debate each other over efficient market hypothesis.
Coincidentally, shortly after my last post advocating for sales professionals to maintain human connections, a press release about Tastry caught my eye. The title, "How Tastry Taught a Computer to Taste," intrigued me. Full disclosure, I have no connection to Tastry, nor is our winery a client, but I'm a passionate supporter of entrepreneurship and I find their concept intriguing. Moreover, I'm enthusiastic about any data-driven approaches to consumer marketing in the fine wine business. What particularly excites me is that Tastry was apparently founded by a chemist who is applying her scientific expertise to create a marketing model. In our industry, data-driven perspectives are often dismissed in favor of emotion and romanticism, which I believe has not served us well. For that reason, I am cheering Tastry on.
My initial thought, though, is focused on how we can effectively utilize this data about taste preferences for successful sales and marketing. As I stressed before, Artificial Intelligence should be a tool to enhance our marketing efforts, not a replacement for the human touch or positioned as a work-around for marketing. As long as wine is consumed by humans there is no isolated, single part-worth in a wine brand that can consistently forecast purchasing.
I’m wondering if Tastry’s data (or data similar to it) could be the basis for conducting an analyses using sales as the dependent variable and taste preferences along with various factors like label variations as the independent variables. Perhaps Tastry is already doing this. We could also explore the relationship between taste preferences and price variance, or taste preferences and wine scores versus descriptive keywords. The list of potential independent variables is virtually endless, but a path towards a very useful conjoint analysis could likely be achieved.
If success were solely about scores, labels, prices, or even taste preferences, sales and marketing professionals could hang up the towel. In hindsight, I understand that what my Sonoma friend was trying to convey about the "magic formula" for a successful wine brand is that, well, there isn't a specific formula. Otherwise, it would be replicable with the same results each time.
Take, for example, La Marca Prosecco, the largest sparkling wine brand by case volume in the US, which achieved its position relatively quickly. If we examine its brand components independently, one might argue that the sweet flavor profile, favored by Americans, played a pivotal role. But there have been other sweet and bubbly wines on the market in the U.S. for quite some time that never achieved brand status. Consider the elegant Tiffany-like blue label of La Marca, which resonated with the target consumer demographic, making every customer proud to bring that chic bottle to brunch. I’m certain these psychographics were a key ingredient in the brand’s success. Or consider the tremendous advantage of Gallo's distribution network, with an army of sales pros ensuring La Marca's prime placement next to the orange juice in the cold box for that last minute brunch purchase.
The combination of these variables contributed to La Marca's sales success as much as the wine's combination of effervescence and sweetness.
What truly creates a successful wine brand? As the saying goes, I know it when I see it. The key is seeing all of the parts and articulating them perfectly as a whole to the consumer in a way that satisfies their multi-faceted needs.