For nearly 25 years, I was a partner in an ad agency that had a great roster of national and international clients including the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, the Chilean Image Campaign, celebrating Chile’s return to democracy, and domestically, companies like L.L.Bean, Sebago and many food and beverage companies in Europe and the […]
(This article is directed to the wine industry but the principles apply to almost any product where customer relationships are important. Is there one where it’s not?) Report after report, blog after blog, and trend after trend are showing that Direct-To-Consumer wine sales have been falling both in volume and value. It’s not just DTC […]
If you read Mike Veseth’s “Theories of the Global Wine Glut “in last week’s Wine Economist and his followup to that article this week or looked at a lot of the recent sales data, you know there’s a problem. “The world is swimming wine” As Veseth points out, “Wine consumption fell during the COVID-19 pandemic […]
I published a blog post titled “DTC Wine Shipments are growing at a record pace. How long will it last?” in April of 2017. In it, I wrote about the euphoria around a 17% increase for DTC shipments the previous year. Several years before the pandemic, DTC was growing rapidly and Covid-19 gave it additional […]
Here’s how: In 2020, I learned that I’m on a lot of email lists, more than I ever imagined. In 2019, I received an average of 300 emails a day. That went up to 500+ in 2020. In a way I’m not surprised. My company, Oomiji, sends out a lot of email newsletters and promotions for […]
On August 13th, we held a webinar for 99 participants from the wine industry. We presented findings from two surveys that we conducted overlaid on top of data from three other sources. Included were: Our two surveys were conducted over a six-week period from late March to early May. Our data led us to some conclusions […]
I was talking to an exec from one of the largest wine importers in the country the other day about how the pandemic has thrown the wine industry off its game. There are more sommeliers out of work now than there are staffing restaurants. Most wine retail takes place at curbside pickup or delivery. Tasting […]
(I wrote this with the upcoming VinExpoNY in mind but since it applies to so many industries, I decided to post it here.) With VinExpoNY fast approaching, I’ve been thinking about the challenges in front of thousands of foreign wine producers who are trying to develop and cultivate a market in the U.S. While the challenges […]
With the London Wine Fair arriving in a few weeks, companies that aren’t already re-evaluating their UK sales and marketing strategy will hear plenty at the exposition. As David Williams recently wrote in the Guardian (Wine and the Brexit Effect), “nobody has any idea what’s going to happen next.” So, with that bit of wisdom, you can […]
There’s no question that DTC wine sales are growing at a dramatically rapid pace. According to Sovos ShipCompliant’s 2017 DTC Report, shipment volume increased more than 17% last year with similar growth expected this year. The potential seems unlimited with 45 states now allowing direct wine shipments. Three states, California, Texas and New York account for nearly half […]
