Experts Fear Global Wine Industry Lags Dangerously Behind in Embracing Social Media

BY: Elizabeth Hans McCrone SNIPPETS SHARED via wineindustryadvisor.com

I came across this article today, and realized how spot on Monika is about her social media views. A few snippets are here, and the full article link is at the end of this post.

“We have to understand this … that in 25 years, there won’t be people alive who have lived without it.” So predicts Monika Elling, CEO and Founder of Foundations Marketing Group (FMG), a strategic communications and brand building company for the wine and spirits industry.

Elling is referring to social media and other digital communication platforms, citing the critical importance of moving beyond what she calls “retro thinking” to embrace customers where they live in a technologically advanced world.

“They (customers) don’t even think of it as social media,” Elling emphasizes. “They see it as part of their lives, how they gather information. In reality, it’s as much a part of life as is a car (for everyone). We don’t talk about the horse and buggy anymore, right?”

As a noted speaker and author, Elling is sought after for her expertise on social and digital media and their implications for the state of the wine and spirits sector. Her views on these topics are crystal clear.

“Today, everything is visually driven,” Elling observes. “If you don’t have a website that drives your window to the world, you’re left behind. Consumers will see it. It takes a split second to make a decision about your brand – and 80 percent of wineries on a global basis don’t understand this.”

“Today every word has a ripple effect, nothing is said in a vacuum,” Elling warns. “There’s a serious disconnect with understanding how information travels on a brand-building scale. It’s all about where consumers sit. And they are light years ahead on these conversations.”

Elling notes that many “shockingly significant producers” with huge investments in property, winemaking expertise and equipment have “websites that scream of fifteen years ago. And so do their bottle labels,” she adds.

She believes the predicament stems from a type of abstract disengagement with the customer, which she illustrates like this:

“There’s some Baby Boomer guy in the middle of a country (anywhere), sitting on a stunningly beautiful piece of agricultural property with five hundred years of history, making up a label that he thinks a U.S., female, millennial consumer will buy … seriously?”

Her advice, to the industry as a whole, is to develop a business plan that is in alignment on multiple points and strategies, including a communications component that is directed by those with the expertise to handle it.

Well stated Monika! Please see the full article here: wineindustryadvisor.com/2017/09/13/experts-fear-wine-industry-behind-social-media

Well state