FRENCH WINES CAMPAIGN – He who dares wins

Justin Howard-Sneyd, manager, wine buying at Waitrose talks about successfully promoting French wines

In The competitive UK retail environment, innovation is key to growing market share. However retailers have traditionally relied on the heritage of French wine and its high level of recognition with consumers, rather than promoting the category innovatively. With this in mind, throughout 2006 the French Wines Campaign has been proactive in working directly with leading retailers to develop new ways to market French wines.

One of those retailers is Waitrose, which ran an innovative French Wines Showcase from 24 April to 21 May supported by the French Wines Campaign. Waitrose took the unusual step of merchandising its French range regionally, rather
than in the usual colour segments. But as wine buying manager Justin Howard-Sneyd explains, there were other key differences.

Daring to be different
“The major difference with the French Wines Showcase was that for the fist time we were able to use a part of the store outside the wine department,” he explains. “The seasonal aisle is a part of the branch that’s not used very much in the period after Easter or at the end of summer. So we were able to secure a section of that aisle for four weeks for the showcase.”

In addition Howard-Sneyd wanted to offer customers more unusual French wines. “Of the 48 wines on promotion more than half were part of our regular selection. About half of the rest were wines that we were bringing in new to the range” explains Howard-Sneyd. “The remainder were specific parcels. Some were quite big parcels, when we’d been able to purchase something at a very advantageous price and were able to pass a good deal on to our customers; but others were quite small and quirky parcels – Alsace Riesling for example.”

This was a risk in some ways. “It’s inevitably quite difficult when you bring a small parcel of wine in for a short period of time. The difficulty is with the stock that remains behind in branch at the end of the promotion,” says Howard-Sneyd. But the gamble paid off. “By and large in the French Wines Showcase, we solved that problem quite well and were able to make sure that those branches were able to sell through those wines they were not carrying on in their range after the showcase,” he adds.

Strong sales
In fact sales of the entire French range took a massive leap thanks to the showcase. “During the showcase we topped 16% market share for all French wine sales in England. It shows the power of promoting a big category like French wines and how well our consumers reacted to it.” 

This success was in no small part due to effective marketing support for the campaign. As well as radio advertising on stations such as Classic FM, Howard-Sneyd explains, “We did a lot in the branch. We had very good point-of-sale and header cards, to point people towards the showcase.” In addition Waitrose produced a 16-page in-store information leaflet.

Informing customers
“We wanted to make sure that people knew which region the wine was from,” says Howard-Sneyd. “So the leaflet was laid out regionally, like the wine on the shelf. We took each region by turn, giving basic information and facts about the area, together with a map. We explained what it was about each wine that typified the region and gave tasting notes.”

There was also sampling. “Each weekend during the showcase there was a selection of four wines being tasted in most of the branches, and that certainly helped to support that educational message,” explains Howard-Sneyd. Although many of the wines were on price promotion, for Howard-Sneyd the French Wines Showcase was as much concerned with educating consumers as it was with driving sales.

“Our challenge is to show people the value of a wine. If you tell people why that wine is worth spending money on, they might try it first on promotion, but they’ll have much more reason to come back and buy it at full price,” he believes.
“Wine is inherently a confusing subject,” he continues. “You need to give consumers something that helps them understand it. Each consumer will be on their own journey learning about wine, and some won’t go very far down the path before they decide that’s enough. So if you can help to tempt them further down the road it works well for you as a retailer.”

According to ACNielsen, market share on French wine in the four weeks to 27/05/06 rose from the typical 11% for Waitrose to 16% (52 weeks). The year-on-year value sales for wine showed an overall 21% increase and for French wine in particular a spectacular 101% increase. Moreover store managers reported clear evidence of customers trading up as a result of the promotion, with the average bottle price rising to £5.68.

© db December 2006