Gong Fishing

06 November 2005 By db staff writer

“standfirst”>Is the currency of product awards being devalued, now that the drinks trade is kneedeep in them? Which competitions are worth the entry fee, and how should the winners maximise the benefit? asks Robyn Lewis

I’d like to thank my mom and dad. All my friends, my cousin Seth, his wife Dora, next door’s cat that died when I was eight, the man I passed in the street in Penrith 12 years ago…” So goes the traditional awards acceptance speech and, love them or loathe them, awards in the drinks trade are increasing in number and profile. From the big three – the IWC, IWSC and Decanter through the French Wine Awards, the New Wave Spanish Wines Awards, Aperitif Awards and so on, down to the Framley Village Fête Award for Best Moonshine Made in the Month of July, there are myriad competitions out there to choose from.

The good news is that all evidence suggests that winning an award, and displaying it on your packaging, has a positive effect on consumer decision making. They are, we are told, re-assured when they see a shiny gold, silver or bronze medal proudly twinkling away on the shoulder of a bottle. The bad news, however, is that no one really knows how much consumer franchise awards actually have. With so many competitions around do consumers really understand the difference between them? Do we in the trade? And, with the number of competitions ever increasing are we in danger of damaging the kudos of winning an award?

As one trade member commented, “It’s hard to find a wine – and it is always wine – in Tesco that doesn’t have a fan of shiny gold gongs all over it these days.”

What gong?

Even if you decide that the former evidence outweighs the latter doubts, and that entering competitions is beneficial to your product, you are still facing a number of questions. The first and foremost being which of the plethora of competitions should you enter with your precious brands? It would be nice to compete in every one, of course, but entry fees are a pre-requisite in the majority and not only this, costs are on the rise and with budgets more and more stretched, choices naturally have to be made.

“This year in particular there have been a fair few competitions to consider,” comments Lorne Gray, brand group manager at John E Fells & Sons. “We regularly enter the IWC, IWSC and Decanter, along with some regional awards on a more selective basis. I guess we feel we should enter most in order to get an umbrella of endorsements, but you have to think carefully about what you enter where in order to make the most of the opportunity. Basically you need to tailor the wines you enter to the contest; so, for example, we put forward more commercial wines for IWC and more premium wines for Decanter. It’s about horses for courses, really.”

At United Wineries, too, the approach is to be mindful of the cost implications. “Prices are going up and this is an issue,” confirms Jo Haycock at the company. “We’ll probably enter fewer next year as a result as it is a big expense out of the budget. About one or two percent of the marketing budget goes on entry fees each year alone, and then there’s more money needed to promote any medals and trophies to get the most out of a win. When we look at what wines we are going to enter we sit down with the sales team, look at our strategies for the brands over the coming year, what our focuses will be for the 12 months or so, and any new launches, etc, in order to make sure we make the most out of it. The cost implications certainly make it difficult for smaller brands in particular to enter competitions, I would imagine.”

Size matters

For smaller brands the question of entering awards is an even more fraught one. The cost can be prohibitive, and can it really be worth entering if you have only small volumes available to sell? “Awards are useful as a marketing tool,” admits Julian Baker of Julian Baker Fine Wines, the agent for both award-winning Champagne Blin and Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard Chablis. “But that’s only the case if the volumes are big enough. There’s no point having a gold medal for a 50- carton parcel, for example.”

This is a sentiment echoed by Lynn Murray, marketing controller at Hatch Mansfield. “Accolades can be useful for all types of brands, new and old, all sizes. However, there are a couple of caveats to this. You have to consider the time lag from when the medal is announced to the trade and when you can promote it to the consumer. If you don’t have much stock the wine could be sold out by the time you can widely promote and so it is of little value to generate sales. Also in some competitions, without the available volume you would not be able to progress past a gold medal to a trophy and so the exercise as a whole for small producers needs to be carefully assessed. On the plus side, though, awards do help create a good image with the gatekeepers to the trade, when they see you as a medal-winning producer.”

At Blackwood Distillers, winner of several gold, silver and bronze medals at the World Spirits Festival and the International Spirit Festival, and proud recipient of New British Exporter of the Year 2004, not to mention the drinks business Woman of the Year for founder Caroline Whitfield (see page 14), awards are felt to be beneficial to the fledgling company and its brands. “With the product awards, we enter because, clearly with winning such accolades, there’s a credibility point for the product with the industry and our international and domestic customers,” says Tara Benson, sales director of the company. “Also, for new brands it is wonderful to be able to add, for example, three gold medals to the label for Blackwood’s Gin. It reduces the barrier to trial for the consumer, tells the consumer ‘This is okay, the professionals say it’s great, it shouldn’t let you down’. With the business awards it’s great for industry credibility, raising corporate brand awareness and making us feel rewarded. I think the credibility point of all awards, especially if you can show a consistent track record, is hugely helpful to smaller or younger businesses, when meeting with potential international and domestic business partners.”

Ready, set, go

Once you have decided to enter and have chosen which competitions to go for, and won an award, then of course then there’s the question of what to do with the prize. How best to inform the consumer and trade at large what you have won and make sure you stand out from all the others?

 “We try to use competition wins subtly rather than crassly,” says Benson. “We do press releases, put product awards on labels, mention it in presentations, put the certificates on the walls in the Shetlands office for people to see and, of course, try to spread the good news by word of mouth.”

With wine there are further challenges to the marketing of an award, as Hatch Mansfield’s Murray points out. “If we win a gold medal or a trophy, we aim to put medals on the winning bottles,” she says. “As long we’ve got the stock, and that’s the challenge with wine, as sometimes the wine will have moved on to another vintage by the time we can promote a win. If this isn’t an issue, then we communicate the awards to our customers and support them with appropriate POS where we can. Sometimes it can be very difficult to market the wines.”

Particularly, one might say, with the sheer number of award winners out there. How can you be sure consumers understand the difference between a medal that’s a major international award and one from a lesser competition?

Gold foil?

“I don’t think consumers really understand the difference between all the awards but they do understand a ‘gold award’, and in a baffling area of choice any award can help in aiding their decision,” says Helen Munday, marketing and PR director, HwCg. “I would say that out of them all, the IWC has the most consumer awareness. Partly because it has been around for a while but also due to the very identifiable graphics, which are used by all the retailers.”

Damian Carrington, marketing manager of Enotria, agrees that the IWC, probably has the most consumer relevance, adding, “The UK-based awards seem to have the most currency anyway and the IWC does seem to be pre-eminent, although the more awards there are the more this lead is being eroded.

“In fact, the more medals there are on bottles the more the whole concept is being eroded. If everyone has a medal sticker on pack then one has to ask, what’s the point? I am certainly concerned that we are getting to the stage where every product on offer has won something.

“Awards undoubtedly have their place and outstanding quality or value for money should be rewarded, but awards only really mean something if the competition is true, fair and credible.”

Indeed, and so we conclude what I hope to be another award-winning db article. I’d like to thank the editorial team, the design department, the sub-editors, the cleaners, Steve my goldfish …