It might be time to re-evaluate the labels in your shop – even tradition-bound Bordeaux is making an effort to keep up with the times. [level-members]
It’s no secret that labels have an impact on consumer behavior for products in just about every category, including wine. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that savvy marketers working for producers are making a push for even tradition-minded wineries to consider a more modern approach. You can read about some examples of this in a recent Forbes article about Bordeaux and their wine labels.
Of course, we can’t control the labels that wineries put on their bottles, nor how they market their wines, but we can control which wines we select for our shop. You might consider doing some testing to see if your audience prefers traditional-style labels or a more modern look by offering similar wines side by side. You’ll need to keep them close in price for this to be effective, and you might consider opting for wines with similar scores/profiles with the usual sources your cusetomers might be checking.
The information you gather from tests like this can help guide you as you make decisions on what to stock going forward. Be sure to let the test run long enough to help smooth out the bumps that are likely to arise from very small samples. You’ll want to run the test for at least a month – unless the data is so overwhelmingly one-sided right from the start.
And don’t discount the way that context can play into this. If one style of wine labels proves more popular with your audience, stock up on wines that fit the bill and that meet your other criteria – but consider including an “island” of the opposite style labels; they may appeal to the contrarians in your audience.
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