MARKETING BRANDBUILDER – Keeping it Wimple

Blue Nun’s latest incarnation is designed to appeal to wine ‘brides’ and ‘virgins’ by not worrying their pretty little heads. Bless ‘em, says Robyn Lewis

Nuns. Now there’s a word with connotations. What did you think of when you read that? Old ladies in wimples? Sexy, black, leather-clad, naughty nuns? Nuns On the Run? The Sound Of Music? Penguins? You can see the sort of trouble you might run into when trying to revamp a certain wine brand to appeal to the modern consumer.

Blue Nun has been around since 1921 and has seen a few incarnations since then. The brand was relaunched in 1995, 1997, 1999/2000 and now, again, in 2005, the regularity of which reflects, perhaps, a brand that had lost its way. “Blue Nun’s original success in the 60s and 70s was based on a clear brand proposition,” says Carmen Beyer, international marketing manager at brand owner Langguth. “It was a wine for first-time and light wine drinkers – simple, easy to drink and very approachable. Blue Nun failed in the late 80s because changing wine habits were ignored – the brand message that Blue Nun matched any food, simply was not credible.” And so it became a byword for naff.

“It used to be that all the press cuttings that came through for the brand were not about wine at all. Blue Nun had become short-hand for something negative,” explains Keith Lay, marketing director at Ehrmanns, the UK agent for the brand. “But,” he continues, “It was still a brand that had potential, despite the issues.”

Globally the brand sells some 12.5 million bottles per year and is sold in over 80 countries – its main markets being the UK, the US, Scandinavia and China – with an overall growth rate of 11% per annum, according to the company’s stats. Not bad at all, and certainly a set of stats that – no matter how naff the brand might be – you wouldn’t wish to put at risk. So the job of revamping it was always going to be a delicate balancing act to avoid alienating the existing consumers who, as Lay points out, are extremely loyal to the brand. “We needed to appeal to new target markets without losing our existing drinkers; change taste perceptions of the brand; improve value and position the brand as a contemporary range,” he says.

The new target consumer was identified, through research with analysts TGI, as “Wine Virgins” who have little or limited wine consumption and for whom the brand would act as a bridge into wine, and “Brand Brides”, typically wine drinkers who stick to a range of established female-friendly brands. With the research in hand the redesign of the brand began in earnest. The objectives were to reposition it in a contemporary way to appeal to the new target as well as the existing audience; to change taste perceptions; improve value and to be competitive. The launch of the new packaging (which occurred in October in the UK) will be supported by a £500,000 marketing campaign which will take several forms through the autumn and winter.

The first is an advertising campaign, themed What’s Your Favourite Colour? which Lay believes taps into an opportunity that many other wine brands miss. “What we found in our research was that a lot of young women aren’t interested in complexity in their wine. What they want is simplicity and to not have to think about it too much. Blue Nun’s message is exactly that – enjoy the wines, don’t worry about which grapes are used.”

Naughty nuns

The campaign has been designed to tap into the language of modern brands such as iPod, Google and Easyjet and will run in titles like Heat and Cosmopolitan. There will also be a tie-up with Anne Summers in the run-up to Christmas and a link with the Pink Ribbon Breast Cancer campaign.

“The three-year plan is to reach a million cases through revitalising the brand, recruiting new drinkers and developing line extensions,” says Beyer. “We want Blue Nun to be in the top 20 wine brands and think that, despite the issues the brand currently has, it does have strong potential and we believe we’ll be able to achieve that.”

© db December 2005