The Store of the Future

Posted on June 5, 2013 at 3:54 pm by angela robar with Leave a Comment

There’s something sensual about shopping in a store that online browsing just can’t replace. The touch. The focus. The ability to try things on for size. But there is also something about the convenience of technology. The ability to have whatever our heart desires–on demand.

This weekend a new concept store, Hointer, opened in Seattle which aims to blend all the benefits of in-store browsing with the convenience of technology, to enhance the shopping experience.

Hointer shopping by QR Code

At retail store Hointer, shoppers select clothing they want to try on using their smartphone and QR Codes or NFC

 

It’s interesting to think how this concept could be applied to wine and spirits shopping–the ability to see the packaging, possibly have a taste, and scan the QR Code (or swipe using Near Field Communication) to read and place a mixed order of your choosing that is ready to be picked up on the way out the door. No more crowded isles with shelves full of breakable bottles (ladies with handbags, you know what I’m talking about!) or carts full of bottles rattling around.

Here in Seattle, this concept seems like a perfect fit for bigger stores like Esquin and Wine World, but it might also suit small bottle shops like McCarthy & Shiering and West Seattle Cellars with their precarious stacks of library-esque wine shelves.

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Will QR Codes stick around?

Posted on May 31, 2013 at 7:05 pm by angela robar with Leave a Comment

Technology changes at the blink of an eye and it’s increasingly becoming difficult for companies to decide what to commit to because so many seemingly awesome new technologies are here today and gone tomorrow (sometimes to return again later as we’re seeing rumblings of with cassette tapes!).

The Cassette Tape - an example of older technology making a comeback

The Cassette Tape (Source: Wikipedia)

Like many other marketing professionals, here and abroad, we like the QR Code because it signals to our audience “hey, there’s something here you might find interesting!” and then provides an instant connection from the offline world to online. QR Codes make print materials alive and dynamic. When working in a space like the food and beverage industry where packaging “real-estate” is very limited and full of government required text, the ability to bridge from print to online is tremendously valuable. Online we can provide layers of additional detail about the product; we can tell the brand story, and introduce the people that give the brand heart; we can keep information current with updates about new awards, drinking recommendations, and a new taste profile, or a new favorite pairing as a wine ages and different characteristics develop.

We’re excited by the innovative uses of QR Codes by:

  • Mercedes-Benz who is putting a QR Code in every car so emergency personnel can instantly access car schematics which used to have to be done by calling in a registration plate wasting precious, potentially life-saving, time following a car crash.
  • Zappos uses QR Codes to engage visitors to each department.
  • Vineyard Brands provides an awesome mobile experience for their sales team and trade customers making access to information in the field instant. And their producers like Famille Perrin provide a consumer user experience using QR Codes on every package and a detailed mobile experience for each product.
  • Angry Orchard has a good mobile experience that allows users to find where to buy their product–instantly delivered via a QR Code on the bottle.
QR Codes from Va Piano Vineyards (Walla Walla, Washington) on the Bruno's line of wines including Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot

QR Codes from Va Piano Vineyards provide valuable wine information and tell the story of the estate

So promising. However, we’ve heard it all from clients and industry folk “they’re ugly”, “they’re hype”, “no one scans them”, but after a year of having QR Codes in the market place for a number of our winery clients, we can tell you, people do scan them. They don’t expect them to be beautiful. When they arrive at a good mobile site with valuable and interesting information, they really think those little codes are cool. What wins people over in the end is the easy access to information when it’s most relevant–however it occurs.

As more and more good applications enter the market and users get more comfortable with their smartphone (still relatively new to many), we believe these valuable little codes will in fact stick around.

 

 

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Brand Building for Sales

Posted on October 30, 2012 at 11:23 am by angela robar with Leave a Comment

Before sellers will sell and buyers will buy, they need to know how you’re different.

What they’re thinking:

Sellers: what do I say to sell this wine?

Buyers: how is this wine different than that $10 wine I always buy? How is this $50 wine different than that $50 wine? That was good, what the heck was it? How do I remember it when I’m at the store next?

Wine, QR Codes, Marketing, Sales, Mobile

Set Your Brand Apart

Due in part to the “buy before you try” issues with wine, partly to the vast population of (self-proclaimed) under-educated wine consumers, partly to the “me too” story telling brands do, and partly because of the tiny amount of packaging real estate coupled with large amounts of government regulation text required, answering these questions can be difficult.

Making your wine stand apart from the rest is no small feat. But times are a changin’ and it’s getting a whole lot easier. You tell your differences through your brand story. And now with mobile, you deliver your brand story and information that increases enjoyment of your wine, at the exact moment a customer wants it, with a QR Code. This evolves your marketing into something more like a conversation, where you provide what customers are looking for without making them look for it.

Building awareness for your brand is the key to growing sales–whether you plan to sell direct or via the channel. I didn’t make this up folks. Brand building isn’t “sausage making”, it’s about enabling sales.

Brand building happens in the tasting room, but also via third-party wine clubs, restaurants, in-store tastings, opening new markets, distributor ride-alongs, and good merchandising displays in stores. Mobile and QR Codes represent an unprecedented opportunity for brand building and connecting with customers by providing relevant and highly specific information out in the market at the moment the [consumer, sales rep, server, store staff] wants it, suddenly making a particular wine [stand out, more enjoyable, easier to sell, more memorable], and ultimately helping everyone on your team sell more wine.

For this reason, putting a QR Code on your marketing and on your label make sense. Having a QR Code lead to a good mobile site is essential.

 

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Why Mobile is so Great for Marketing

Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:40 am by angela robar with Leave a Comment

At the recent annual meeting of the Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance, we heard that Robert Mondavi changed the way wineries marketed and sold wine when he started inviting visitors to the winery for music, learning, and other wine experiences in the late ’60′s.

Some 50 years later, wineries see the value in having a tasting room—inviting visitors in to learn your story, try your wines, create an experience, and remember you.

Yet there is wine on shelves, online, on menus, making its way to tables everywhere—daily, getting into the hands of people everywhere—daily. Consumers, retailers, and restaurants are all creating experiences with your wines outside of your tasting room.

More than 50% of these people have always on, always connected, mobile devices standing “at the ready” to call up whatever information they might want to know. Ready to enhance their experience with information, converse with networks of friends online, and share their experiences while they are happening.

Mobile is hitting mainstream, and as Sean Sullivan of Washington Wine Report points out in his recent post Wineries: Time to Get Mobile “There is only one problem with the plethora of new smartphone users; wineries are not ready for them.”

Now, this doesn’t mean you should run out and simply throw a mobile website up. This is not about checking a box and knocking things off the list—if this is your approach, you will surely be saying later “we tried that, it doesn’t work”. It means you should think about your user. Who are they? What are they looking for when they are on their mobile device? What information do they want from you in this scenario? How do you provide a great experience?

When you have a good mobile experience for your wine brand, and provide an easy, instant access method like a QR code…

  • every bottle can arm your trade and consumer customers with what they need to create their own “tasting room” experience with your wines,
  • your story can be easily shared with their customers and friends—online and off,
  • the samples you send to media and bloggers become more like conversations with your winemaker,
  • your distributor reps, and on- and off-premise staff turn into brand ambassadors rather than simply deal makers,
  • you become accessible and create direct connections with on- and off-premise accounts and consumers,
  • you receive data that you can use to make informed business decisions.

If you’re thinking mobile sounds like a pretty valuable tool for your wine brand…it is.

How do you get started?

  1. Be found. Register your locations and contact information on major search engine sites like Google Places http://www.google.com/places/ and Bing http://www.bing.com/businessportal These sites will deliver your location information in a mobile ready format, for free, so that users looking for your tasting room and contact information on their mobile device can get it, when they need it most.
  2. Be memorable. Create a mobile experience for users to access details about your wine, your winery and your winemaker that will help them increase their enjoyment with your brand. Be interesting, thoughtful, and provide easy navigation to encourage exploration. Give them what they need to create experiences they will remember and share with their networks. This can help you sell more wine.
  3. Be accessible. QR codes are a good tool for enabling instant access to information. Putting codes on your point-of-sale, tech sheets, event materials, and bottle labels, and making them available to your retail and restaurant partners for use, is a great way to make your materials dynamic, push your mobile content into market, and deliver what your customers want, when they want it most.

We provided our mobile + QR solution to more than 40 wineries at two tasting events earlier this year. We saw how QR codes and mobile increased interaction at the events and kept momentum in the days and weeks following, as attendees continued to engage with the mobile content. We monitored more than 800 scans, from 200 unique visitors who viewed 4.5 of 5 pages per visit. We heard from retail shop buyers and consumers that this is something they want.

 

 

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Where Smartphone Users are Most Social

Posted on May 7, 2012 at 8:11 am by angela robar with Leave a Comment

Curious to know where Smartphone users are spending their time? Comscore just introduced their enhanced mobile specific reporting Mobile Metrix 2.0. This table shows which social networks Smartphone users are frequenting and how much time they spent in the month of March 2012.

Selected Social Networking Properties (Mobile Browser and App Audience Combined)
March 2012
Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Age 18+ on iOS, Android and RIM Platforms
Source: comScore Mobile Metrix 2.0
Total Unique Visitors (000) % Reach Average Minutes per Visitor
Facebook 78,002 80.4% 441.3
Twitter 25,593 26.4% 114.4
LinkedIn 7,624 7.9% 12.9
Pinterest 7,493 7.7% 52.9
Foursquare 5,495 5.7% 145.6
Tumblr 4,454 4.6% 68.4

Source: Comscore Mobile Metrix 2.0

 

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Social Influence Model: Product + Information + Connectivity

Posted on October 1, 2011 at 8:04 am by angela robar with Leave a Comment

It shouldn’t be news to anyone that consumers trust the recommendations of their peers, and that consumer-created reviews are the preferred source of information about products & services (value, price, quality). This is why social media is so exciting; what once was facilitated through one-on-one in-person, phone, and e-mail interactions, can now be done via one-to-many social network interactions.

Social Influence Scenario:
According to Facebook, the average user has 130 friends. Recommendations are now given not to one person, but to 130 people, who then can choose to pass it on, and so on–when it’s convenient for the recommender, who must be online. It’s important for brand owners to anticipate the increasing momentum and power of recommendations when we add to social networking, the always convenient, always online, mobile device.
Vinette Social Influence Model
Vinette Social Influence Model

 

Until recently, the biggest thing holding back the power of social media was connectivity. The Achilles Heel, with regard to recommendations, was unfulfilled good intentions on the part of brand enthusiasts due to lack of connectivity at the moment of peak enjoyment.

Now, the challenge for brands is not to simply “go mobile” and exist on social networks, the challenge is to create a mobile experience with contextual content that is worthy of, and easy to share. Then it’s all about listening and genuinely engaging with the social media audience.

 

 

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The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users (via Google)

Posted on July 29, 2011 at 5:52 pm by angela robar with Leave a Comment

I love stats. While it’s important to be critical of them, they serve to balance all the qualitative information, theories, and opinions that exist.

In April 2011, Google reported their findings from a study they conducted (via independent research firm Ipsos OTX) on smartphone users. The findings are really exciting and helping us shape our product path at Vinette. Here are a few examples of how we’re using these findings:

  • Provide a mobile experience that delivers fast, relevant product information because 70% of smartphone users use their smartphones while in the store.
  • Include easy sharing options for social networks because 63% of smartphone users access social networks from their phone.
  • Optimize product pages for mobile search because 77% of smartphone owners use their phone to search.
  • Layer information with rich content and media for further viewing later, and provide easy repeat access, because 93% of smartphone owners use their smartphone at home.

This just scratches the surface with regard to how users are engaging brands with their smartphone. I highly recommend watching this 3min video from Google.

The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users

Food for thought…bon appetit!

 

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