Right after Visa and Verizon Wireless on AdAge’s ‘Marketing 50‘ is the Stormhoek winery. I’ve been following their campaigns since the beginning in the summer of 2005 and interviewed marketer/blogger/cartoonist Hugh Macleod and Jason Korman from Stormhoek on Winecast 67. How did they build a brand from almost nothing to 100,000 cases sold across four continents in 16 months? Hire an A-list blogger/marketing guru, give samples outside of the wine press and convert their website to a blog. All of this cost only a few thousand dollars and has created an international conversation about Stormhoek the brand (and the wine, too).
My favorite part of the piece in AdAge is Hugh’s quote:
“There’s more to blog marketing than sales, he says. Blogs help marketers see consumers as people, not just abstract, dehumanized targets…”
All this proves that social media is a powerful force in marketing and it can be applied successfully in the wine industry. I’ll be tracking a few other wineries using similar tactics in future posts here.
Congrats Hugh and Jason!
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Thank you for this post. I must have been living under a rock for the past year, because I did not even know about this marketing campaign. This is truly an eye-opener, and a marketing success that may change how business is done in our trade.
Glad you caught up with what Stormhoek is doing, Keith. They are really changing the wine industry but I’m surprised we are not seeing more wineries emulate their tactics.