The 2011 Charlottesville (VA) Wine Bloggers Conference: A study in effective marketing promotion

One of the key areas of focus of the Virginia Wine Board Marketing Office (VWBMO) is increasing regional and national awareness of Virginia wines and one of its most significant actions to date in that regard was co-sponsoring (along with Virginia Tourism) the 4th annual Wine Bloggers' Conference (WBC4) held in Charlottesville (VA) from July 21 to 24, 2011.  I discussed this promotional effort, its implementation, and the realized benefits, with Ms. Annette Ringwood Boyd, Director of VWBMO,  as part of our larger conversation on marketing and the VA wine industry.

According to Ms. Boyd, the intent in co-sponsoring WBC4 was to (i) raise awareness of VA wine and (ii) to increase the awareness of the VA wine region as a whole as a tourist destination.  The sponsors saw wine bloggers as influencers and perceived the conference as providing a vehicle within which to influence these influencers.

There had been three WBCs held prior to the Charlottesville edition (Sonoma 2008, Napa & Sonoma 2009, and Walla Walla 2010) and 80% of the attendees at those conferences hailed from California.  Virginia wine country was one of three wine regions asked to submit proposals to host the fourth installment of the conference and VWBMO partnered with Virginia Tourism to prepare and submit what turned out to be the winning proposal.  The location of the next year's conference is normally made on the last day of the current conference and when the announcement was made at the Walla Walla conference that Charlottesville had been selected to host in 2011, the predominantly west-coast-based bloggers were not enamored at the prospect of traveling "all the way to the east coast."  It was at this time, according to Ms. Boyd, that many of the east coast bloggers -- who had not thought twice about traveling out to the west coast to support past conferences -- came to the defense of the selection.  Ms. Boyd specifically mentioned the VA wine blogging community and Lenn Thompson of New York Cork Report (the first time that I have heard anyone publicly admitting to knowing that guy) as being very supportive of the selection and making that fact known loudly.

The VWBMO took a comprehensive approach to exploiting the opportunity presented by the conference.  Rather than waiting for the bloggers to arrive in the Commonwealth and then inundating them with literature and wines at the conference, VWBMO arranged a series of pre-conference Twitter tastings which would serve as on-ramps to both the conference and VA wines for "high-value" wine bloggers.  These pre-conference tastings were kicked-off with a tasting of wines from the Monticello AVA in the October prior to the conference and was then followed by a December tasting of Loudon AVA wines, a May tasting of VA whites, and, two weeks prior to the conference, a VA Viognier tasting.  The organization of the tasting called for 12-18 bloggers on Twitter (or in a central location in VA), the presence of one or more winemakers to assist in responding to questions raised from the ether, and a VA wine blogger as the moderator.  Information packages and wines were sent to the participants in advance of the tastings.

Results from these tastings showed increasing engagement of participants when the beginning and ending stats are compared.  The first tasting generated 521 tweets, 31,000 followers, and 1.2 million potential impressions.  By the time the Viognier tasting was completed, its numbers were 1200 tweets, 86,000 followers, and 2.8 million potential impressions.

The conference itself had a few challenges but, overall, it was a huge success and a win-win for Virginia and the conference organizers.  First, the biggest challenge.  It was hot and humid in Charlottesville and this negatively impacted attendee comfort levels, especially at the signature tent affair on the Monticello grounds.

The wins for the conference organizers were (i) the conference sold out and (ii) they uncovered a huge new audience for the conference.  Remember that the conference was 80% west-coast-resident attendees prior to the Charlottesville conference?  Well, the attendees at the Charlottesville conference were more broadly distributed: 23% from VA; 35% west coast, 9% MD, 2% Canada, 2% Oregon, 17% NY, and 9% from other southern states.

For VA wine the win was that all of these attendees were exposed to VA wines and that VA wines gained broader exposure than the wines at previous WBC conferences thanks to the attendee makeup.  Some of the conference-related statistics collected by VWBMO follow:

• 335 conference participants from 4 countries and 21 states
• 47 VA wineries featured
• 78 VA wineries represented
• 7 bus loads of bloggers visited 17 wineries
• 15, 206 tweets using the conference hashtag
• 43.5 million potential impressions
• 125 blog posts written by the October following the conference with the reviews being overwhelmingly positive.

Additional benefits that have accrued as a result of co-sponsoring the conference include: (i) increases in relevant web and twitter traffic and (ii) articles in the national press to include Huffington Post, the Washington Post, and the San Francisco Chronicle.  The awareness, on a national level, of VA wines, and VA as a tourist destination, is much higher now than it was prior to the conference.

© Wine -- Mise en abyme

A Marketer's perspective on the Virginia wine industry

Having previously reported on the technical aspects of the Virgina wine industry, I turned to Ms. Annette Ringwood Boyd, Director of the Virginia Wine Board Marketing Office (VWBMO), to gain insight into the marketing issues that the industry confronts at the macro level and the types of initiatives and assistance available to aid in advancement of the cause.  I report on my discussion with Ms. Boyd in this post.

The Virginia Wine Board, founded in 1984, is the facility within the Commonwealth's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services that is tasked with "promoting the interests of the vineyards and wineries in the Commonwealth through research, education, and marketing."  The  members of the Board -- to include nine voting members (three growers, six wineries) and one non-voting member (the Secretary of the Deprtment of Agriculture and Consumer Services) -- are appointed by the Governor and serve four-year terms.  According to Ms. Boyd, one-third of the Board's budget is allocated to research targeted at the viabilty and sustainability of the wine industry and the remaining two-thirds is targeted at marketing and promotion.

The VWBMO assists the Board in meeting the marketing aspect of its mandate through its focus on four key areas: (i) driving individuals to Virginia wine; (ii) increasing regional and national awareness of Virginia wines; (iii) trade promotion; and (iv) expanding the footprint of Virginia wine.
As it relates to driving people to Virgina wine, Ms. Boyd points to Virginiawine.org and the VA Wine Guide as important arrows in the quiver.  Virginiawine.org has the tagline "your guide to everything Virginia Wine" and does a pretty good job of meeting that requirement.  It is a one-stop shop for information on wineries, wine-related events, wine regions and AVAs, wine news, and other relevant topics.  The Virginia Winery Guide seeks to facilitate winery visits by providing "a detailed map and listing of each winery, with tour hours, amenities and directions."  In addition, VWBMO works with Virginia Tourism to target national media for promotion of the benfits of touring the Virginia wine region, set as it is in beautiful countryside with rolling hills dotted with  horse farms, grape vines, and lush meadows.  Their efforts have been rewarded by Harper Travel recently ranking Virginia as one of the top 10 wine destinations in the country and it being ranked as one of the five up-and-coming wine regions by Travel and Leisure Magazine.

There are two significant trade-related VA-wine events that occur during the course of the year.  The first of the two is the week-long celebration of Virginia Wine that is called Love by the Glass.  This event is held in April and features VA wine by the glass at participating restaurants and wine shops.  The second is an October-long celebration of VA wines with restaurants, wine shops, wineries and events all serving the wines by the glass.

VWBMO is working with an agency to expand the footprint of VA wines in a systematic manner beginning with neighboring states and the District of Columbia, and then expanding outwards to more distant locales.  The team recently conducted consumer and trade tastings in Raleigh, NC, and is attempting to get DC excited about the wine industry that is thriving in its backyard.

In terms of success of the VWBMO promotional programs these will be measured by increases in VA wine sales growth over the long haul.  In the short term, success will be measured by media-attention garnered and requests for sales support.

In response to a question about the market for VA wines, Ms Boyd posited a number of markets, rather than a single market, with a message for each.  There is a market which encompasses VA, DC, and contiguous states and the message for this market comes in two parts: (i) the quality is here and (ii) we are the local option.  The wine has been shown in London and the message for that market is "We are the US wine region with the climate and soil to produce old-world-style wines."  New York is a very attractive market -- given its, size, proximity, and sophistication -- but the message there has to be carefully tailored because, unlike other regional states, it has a viable local option.  For that state the message is "VA has up-and-coming, interesting wines that are worthy."

It is hard to get a truly accurate handle on the amount of VA wine that is sold because VWBMO only has access to figures on VA wine sold within the state.  Last year 463,00 cases of VA wine were sold in the Commonwealth (4.6% of all wines sold in the state) and, at an average cost of $200 per case, this amounts to total sales of $92.6 million.  If a further assumption is made that the VA wine sold outside the Commonwealth is 5% of the in-"state" sales, that figure would increase to $97.23 million.

The industry has experienced three years of double-digit growth and, while these rates will not be achieved this year, Ms. Boyd sees sustained, steady growth tied to increasing acreage.  The Governor has provided tax credits for individuals willing to invest in vineyards and that has had a positive impact on the acreage but Virginia is an older "state" and does not have much available land or, more specifically, enough land that is suitable for wine-grape growing (Even when the land is suitable, grape vines have to compete with other agricultural options for its use.).  The average farm is 25 acres in size and the average production is between 2500 and 5000 cases.  Fo the most part, the industry makeup will continue to be the small, niche farm; the wineries like it that way and so does the Commonwealth.

With respect to the state's wineries, Ms. Boyd sees each one of them as a client to be represented.  Each winery has its own business plan and objectives so VWBMO seeks to develop and implement programs that will have the greatest benefit for the large majority.

In our opening discussions I queried Ms. Boyd about the role that the Governor has played in the ascendancy of the Virginia wine industry.  Ms. Boyd was emphatic in asserting that Governor Bob McDonnell has had an inordinately positive impact on the trajectory of the Commonwealth's wine industry.  Accorrding to Ms. Boyd, then candidate McDonnell spoke to the potential of the industry and how a McDonnell administration would seek to improve its profile.  Once in power, he worked with the General Assembly to ensure that 100% of the excise tax paid by the wineries went back to the Wine Promotion Fund and, as a result, the Wine Board budget went from $580,000 to $1.6 million.  The Governor has, by his personal actions, increased the visibility of VA wines.  For example, on his trade missions -- to locales inclusive of Beijing, Shangai, Tokyo, Stockholm, among others -- the Governor only serves VA wines.  For events where visitors come into the Commonwealth, the Governor promotes and serves VA wines.

Overall, Ms. Boyd is very pleased with the direction of the industry and is especially pleased with the support that the industry continues to receive from the Governor and the General Assembly.  For the future she will continue to focus on expanding the footprint of VA wines.  Most of the internal hurdles have been addressed and the message has been getting out locally (aided in large part by a loyal band of citizen bloggers); the next hurdle to be surmounted is to drive the recognition of the wines beyond Commonwealth boundaries.  It is a big wine world out there with a lot of wine sources with a lot more resources than we have today.

I engaged Ms. Boyd on the Wine Bloggers Conference held in Charlottesville one year ago and got her thoughts as to the benefits that accrued to VA wine as a result.  I will report on that aspect of our conversation in a subsequent post.


© Wine -- Mise en abyme