The Best American Vintages for Social Media: does the age count?
As a French woman, I have often been asked by American people which wine was my favorite. Ironically, I don’t drink wine; and even more ironically, every world ranking places American wines at the top wines worldwide. Even if the French traditional viniculture is the number one reference, American regional wines are really doing a great job, and I am not just talking about Californian or Argentinian wines. Passion for good wines has overwhelmed every corner of the Americas, and a lot of new brands have emerged. But in this context of proliferation, the struggle for quality labels and awards has swiftly been preceded by the social media’s one. Indeed, social media are a great opportunity to make itself known and to reach customers all over the world.
In our digital era, we could reasonably assume that new brands master all the codes of the social media. With this question in mind, I have decided to compare the social media of two wine brands, one recently created and one mature. To avoid being accused of chauvinism, I didn’t select French brands, but rather preferred American brands. Furthermore, in order to have a general footage of the wine industry in the Americas, I have chosen one brand from North America -RdV Vineyards from the United States-, and one brand from South America -Concha y Toro from Chile.
Rdv Vineyards is a small winery created in 2006 and based on Virginia. It makes its wines from 11 parcels, accounting for only 16 acres, in a Bordeaux-style tradition -Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot for connoisseurs. In the other side, Concha y Toro is a mastodon winery created in 1833, growing wines all over Chile and selling them -Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere, Merlot, Syrah, Pinot Noir, Malbec, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling, Red Blend, Sparkling, and Late Harvest, for even finer connoisseurs- in more than 110 different countries.
If you go on RdV Vineyards’ website, you come across a black-background banner with the “RdV” initials and upon this the following white-wordmarked catchphrase: “Neither Bordeaux nor Napa, but uniquely our own”. The tone is set. You can then scroll and learn -still in a black background- about their terroir and their last vintages. If you want to learn more about the brand’s story, people or philosophy, it is as simple as a click in the menu bar at the top of the page; and the scrolling content appears with beautiful pictures.
And if you go on Concha y Toro’s website, you land in a different world. The site was designed like a dashboard with thumbnails pinned on it, and whose content is changing. No beautiful pictures, no scrolls, no play with fonts nor colors… At first sight, it seems far less attractive; but, after an in-depth review, it has, in my opinion, the most important thing today: an openness on each of its other social media. Last Twitter’s actuality, most popular pictures on Instagram, link to their Trip Advisor partnership… Actually the website is handily designed like a Pinterest moodboard.
If you now take a look at the other social media of these two brands, the verdict is undisputable. On Facebook, 400K friends for Concha y Toro versus 3K friends for Rdv Vineyards; on Twitter, 12K followers for the first one versus 1K followers for the second one. The same trend is noticeable for Instagram (23K subscribers versus less than 1K), with the exception that Concha y Toro has published photos only twice as much as RdV Vineyards. In addition, Concha y Toro has also a YouTube channel with 850 subscribers. Regarding the content, they are both pretty much the same -pictures of bottles of wine and of grapevines-, but RdV Vineyards scores a point by adding pictures of people happily drinking wine or sharing it with their close circle. This strategy enables people envisaging themselves using the brand’s wines.
In conclusion, I can say I was surprised to notice that the millennial brand had the most traditional -but also attractive- website, and that the “old” brand had the most social media-oriented website. Wisdom probably. For the other social media, I explain the difference between the size of their communities by the difference of their age. Anyways, RdV Vineyards has a good roll going, and Concha y Toro, despite it has to appear closer to their customers by staging them on pictures or videos, has well understood and proved the importance of social media. My comparison ends here; time has come to make your own gustatory comparison. Cheers!
Delphine Labati
This post was created as part of the Global Luxury Management Program at the NC State Poole School of Management. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
