Influx Insights Tag Feed: wine

mcmenamins- local power brand

Influx Insights — 2008-04-23T14:44:41Z

Mcmenamins has spent the last 30 years building a local empire in Oregon.

Starting out with brew pubs and moving onto hotels, wineries and a distillery. The brand remains true to its roots and exhibits a wonderful, infectious and quirky character that helps it to stand way apart from the boring franchise chains.

You find character in the names of its beers- Terminator and Hammerhead, in the design of its pubs and hotels and in its graphic design and in hotel rooms named after and dedicated to local musicians. Even its events pack the same quirky feel, from UFO festivals to acoustic sets from local musicians played in an eight-seat capacity bar.

Great stuff.

Mcmenamins is a testament to what nurturing and sticking to your personal vision can create for a brand. It also shows that you can build a little empire without going national with VC cash and do it all in your own locale.

Thankfully, the brand hasn't taken a bucket load of cash from an international brewer to expand the concept globally because it would kill its charm. McMenamins remains Oregonian and in that lies its appeal.

Last week, I was fortunate enough to stay in the brand's Hotel Oregon, deep in the heat of wine country. I took some local quality pictures on my iPhone, which can be seen below.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Posted by Ed Cotton

wine bolsters microsoft's marketing

Influx Insights — 2007-09-18T08:21:20Z

The news of Microsoft’s new vintage made its way onto the pages of the Financial Times, not a new operating system, but some wine it had ordered from a South African winery.

Although it sounds as if the Redmond giant is diversifying into arenas, it knows nothing about; instead, the branded wine is rather a smart move.

For the last couple of years, fellow marketing blogger Hugh McLeod has been doing the web PR for a South African winery called Stormhoek. To get the wine talked about Hugh has hosted blogger dinners and this is where the connection to Microsoft came from.

Storkhoek created the wine for Microsoft called it Blue Monster, gave it a tagline “change the world or go home”. The wine isn’t sold to the public and is only available to employees and at Microsoft hosted events.

For a while, Microsoft has struggled to find a right way to pitch itself in many of its corporate efforts. Many times the efforts appear disconnected. A real problem for big companies trying to use television commercials with some sensitivity, there’s always a danger of appearing overblown.

The wine is the perfect antidote.

Here’s why.

1.   It shows they are connected to the world of conversations that are happening through blogs- Hugh is somewhat legendary to the blog wonks in the know.

2.   It’s an unusual tactic, it has talk value because it’s not something you would expect the company to do.

3.   It’s got a sense of humor- The Blue Monster is fun

4.   It’s got desirability-employees and others will want the wine.

Although the top brass has sanctioned this, it didn’t come from them and its all the better for it.

I don’t believe the wine was pre-tested.

Posted by Ed Cotton

get your wine through a straw

Influx Insights — 2007-09-13T05:04:22Z

Cordier is currently testing a new wine concept in Belgium.

It's wine that borrows something from the juice category; small Tetra-Pak box packaging and the all important extra, the straw.

Apparently, the test is going rather well.

Posted by Ed Cotton