HOW DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER MARKETING CAN BE AN ALLY TO THE TRADE IN THESE TRYING TIMES
by Meridith May
Within the pages of a trade publication like The SOMM Journal, the three words you almost never see are “direct to consumer.” Building strong relationships with distributors and supporting the three-tier system has been our steady course of action from the beginning. The very idea of promoting wine and spirits sales outside of this realm has been unthinkable, and as Publisher, I have given strict orders that the subject of online sales is not one we deem to address here or in our sister magazine, The Tasting Panel.
Here’s where I bring in the word however.
We have all been living in a world where we believed in a rosy status quo: We go to work, our kids go to school, we enjoy socially interactive leisure time. However, we are now living in a parallel universe from which we are seeing the old one in an uncomfortable light. Our vision is all too sharp, and our focus is changing in so many ways.
So, with this preamble, I am, at this moment in time, taking a stand for direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales.
And to help me put it in perspective, I spoke with Jessica Kogan, Chief Digital Marketing Officer for Vintage Wine Estates.
“The climate in the marketplace is one of empathy. People are rallying more than they did with the financial crisis of 2008,” she noted. “In fact, if 9/11 and 2008’s economic downturn had a baby, it would be personified as this current pandemic. People are stunned, scared, and trying to cope.”
In the late summer of 2001, Kogan had just left her home in New York and moved to San Francisco. She was one of the first brand marketers in the dot-com era, working for Razorfish, one of the original digital agencies. There, she developed marketing-driven websites as well as e-commerce platforms and portals, and she has since built her career as a digital marketing expert who intimately understands the intersection between online and offline brand spaces.
At the end of 2001, she co-founded Cameron Hughes, and the wine label gained strong momentum through the years; in 2008, it was able to sell to Costco and drive customers online to buy Cameron Hughes from the chain’s stores. “But then once again, our world flipped on its head,” she recalled, referring to the struggles many brands faced during the recession.
That was then. In January 2017, Vintage Wine Estates (VWE), run by CEO Pat Roney and the dynamic Terry Wheatley, acquired Cameron Hughes. It’s one of many Wheatley has added to the company’s portofolio, which now includes 27 brands and 14 wineries—and Kogan, who has proven successful at building strong consumer-marketing plans, was brought in to run the entire digital show. “My responsibilities expanded, to say the least. We built up DTC through tasting rooms, wine clubs, web sites, QVC, and even telemarketing.”
Now, as the coronavirus pandemic impacts our industry, Kogan is adamant about not only keeping communication lines open to help support her brands but also, in her words, “participating as much as we can.” From a digital standpoint, Kogan is keeping channels open to VWE customers. “If we can spread a little bit of joy, then we are happily doing the right thing.”
Knowing that VWE needs the support of the distributor network, she believes that this is a time for quick thinking and action on the digital front; while not abandoning wholesale, it is crucial to keep business going. “I feel for the on-premise community and want them to know that when this is over, we will be sending customers to support restaurants,” she remarked.
Meanwhile, DTC translates to the moment at hand. “We’re finding a voice to support our customers. Thanks to the technology we built on our websites, we can send customers to local retail locations that carry our brands,” Kogan pointed out. “But the beauty of all this is for all of us not to just sell wines but take the time to build brand awareness and, ultimately, loyalty. It’s the customer who needs to be satisfied and have easier access to purchasing right now.”
