Lets leave the world of wine briefly and have a look at the beer trade. The 1990s seemed to be all about branding, getting the big brands front of mind by advertising and association with sports. Some time just after 2000 the marketing departments of the big brewers discovered China could provide them with ultra cheap gimmicks to give away with purchases – stubby holders, bottle openers etc all well branded, and lapped up by consumers.
Soon it became apparent that niche markets could actually be of value, with micro breweries gaining shelf space although not that much overall market share. Extra flavour at an extra cost seemed to be the area of growth, and this has continued today with premium segments of the market showing the best growth.
Pure Blonde heralded a new way to approach niche marketing and has opened up the flood gates for numerous imitators, which leads me to the reason for this post. Coopers has come out with their own low carb offering, Coopers Clear.
Coopers Brewery is a superbly run operation with classy marketing, excellent products and a commitment to steer clear of the gimmicky approach many of its larger competitors have followed over the last few years (has anyone won a VB Pop Up Bar yet – crafted from wood and forged from steel my arse). In many ways, Coopers approach to branding has been similar to that of a boutique winery – focusing on the uniqueness of the product, its production and the company’s history.
When Coopers ‘62′ lager came out last year, the product did smack a little of trying to be something that Coopers is not – refined, classy, chique and modern; an era of change had begun. A beer with no label does look good, but it doesn’t make for good sales – sitting in a fridge behind a bar it just looks like a bottle with a label missing, sitting next to lots of bottles with labels. Just ask Carlsberg – they made the same mistake a few years ago. But I digress.
Coopers Clear is branded in the same colours as Pure Blonde and comes in a clear bottle. It is a complete change of direction for a family owned company which has always focused on classic beers without pretension, though this is an understandable change given they’ve got to make a buck too. The point I’m creeping towards is that if a company like Coopers needs to change direction to move with the times and consumer tastes, do wineries need to think about doing the same?
Wine is full of carbs and a few glasses puts you over the limit. On the other hand, ladies want to have a few glasses of wine without feeling guilty about stacking on weight, have a good time with their friends and then drive their drunk husband home. That their people is a ‘niche market,’ satisfied by low carb and low alcohol wine that hopfully doesn’t taste like yellow acidic water.
Fosters has already built a fairly strong portfolio of low carb/low alcohol wines – Yellow Jewel, Rosemount O, Lindemanns Early Harvest, though their sales don’t seem to be breaking any records. Other wineries are following suite and it’ll be interesting to see where this new direction will take us. Whilst I can’t see Rockford coming out with ‘Alicante Bouchet Light,’ there’s no reason for other small wineries to make a statement and create wines for ever more weight and drink driving conscious consumers. If big burly blokes are moving to low carb beers, how hard can it be to get soccer mums to drink low carb wines?