Branding is important to UK wine drinkers

Apparently branding is not important to UK consumers, so is the conclusion of a report publicised in The Drinks Business – RUBBISH!

Figures from Wilson Drinks Report say that 9% of shoppers decide on their choice by grape variety, 6% by country of origin. Or to put it another way 91% of consumers don’t choose by grape variety and 94% don’t choose by country of origin. Isn’t this classic wine trade thinking – concentrate on the small numbers and completely ignore the what the vast majority want?

47% decide on colour before they walk in – shock horror –does this really tell us anything new?

Price is apparently important – 18% saying that special offers drew them in. We all know that most people are lead by promotions – there is nothing else to go on!

Branding may not currently be important to UK consumers in the wine area, but it is in almost every other consumer area. And let’s face it these figures do not prove that consumers don’t want branding – they prove that there is no branding that is really doing it for them currently. Only 9% of consumers go on variety, because that is the only word that they recognise – whether they recognise it as a grape variety or not is another matter – could be a brand, some winemakers name, name of the next door neighbour – the wine bottles out there don’t really help the average working person.

Come on wine trade get your heads out of the sand British consumers would love proper branding on a bottle of wine – let’s do it right for them!