We meant to get this gigantic presentation* out on our two year anniversary of being in business. It is a combination of the things we are most proud of contributing to the wine industry from VinTank, a few projects we are very excited about, and predictions about wine and tech in 2011. Enjoy and please share. We are really looking forward to hearing your comments.
*apologies about the giant size of the file - we just like images so much . . .
3. On January 1st we
celebrated our two year
anniversary in business.
4.
5. It’s been an amazing journey
trying to merge wine and
technology.
Wine. Technology.
6. And two things have proven true in the last
couple of years: we believe the synergy between
wine and digital will move our industry forward
and we encourage wineries every day to
improve their use of technology to sell and
market their product DTC, DTT, and in the trade.
Wine. Technology.
10. To all the people who believe in us,
our clients, our friends, and
especially our family. Thank you for
supporting us along our two year
journey. We are so grateful to work
with you and have you part of the
VinTank family.
16. We have produced:
2 Major Reports
We are here, We are HERE, WE ARE HERE:
The State of Wine Industry Social Media
A report that explains the state and impact of social
media within the industry. This “herculean labor of
love” was intended to introduce and inform the wine
world on the upcoming business trends within digital
media, breaking down the Who’s, the What’s and
the Who Cares free for the industry.
Check it out: http://bit.ly/fZoMe5
17. We have produced:
2 Major Reports
Wine on the iPhone: What’s the Best App?
A summary and analysis on all the relevant iPhone
applications for the wine industry. We searched
and pulled together applications and split them
into categories based on their capabilities,
functionality, overall performance and impact on
both the market and the consumer.
Check it out: http://bit.ly/ep3yU0
18. We have produced:
12 Pulse Reports
Our views on new technologies that announce
themselves to the wine industry. We do our Pulse
Reports from a winery or consumer-centric
perspective.
Check them out: http://bit.ly/iimb1U
19. We have produced:
Over 25 Blog Posts
Sharing our thoughts on wine and tech.
Including 3 videos from our UNFILTERED series.
You can expect this to exponentially grow in our
content output in 2011.
Check these out:
Twitter voices that influence our thinking...
“Inherit the Wind”- The real interview with Craig Wolf
Is Snooth scraping data from CellarTracker?
20. We have produced:
Unfiltered Videos
Unfiltered #1 with Unfiltered #2 with
Evan Dawson Rob McMillan
WHAM News Anchor Founder of the SVB WIne Division
and Editor of the
NewYorkCorkReport.com
Watch Video Watch Video
Unfiltered #3 with Unfiltered #4 with
Craig Wolfe Barry Schuler
former CEO of AOL and owner of
WSWA President
Meteor Vineyards
Watch Video Watch Video
21. We will produce:
Be on the Lookout
We will be generating more content including:
Frequent blog posts and Pulse Reports on topics we
see that are important to the industry and make a
technological impact. We have also confirmed the
following for our Unfiltered Video Series:
Jennifer Leggio Aaron Strout Meg Maker
Michael Brito Jancis Robinson Randall Grahm
and more....
22. All FREE to help wineries
and consumers
understand the
intersection between
wine and digital.
23. We also have mad love for
other firms who create or
aggregate FREE content
and insight to help wineries.
paulrickett.wordpress.com
24. We also have mad love for
other firms who create or
aggregate FREE content
and insight to help wineries.
paulrickett.wordpress.com
27. The only social media monitoring
service tailored EXCLUSIVELY for
the wine industry.
28. ✓ Measured over 128 million conversations
to distill to 13 million wine conversations
✓ Profiled over 3 million online wine
consumers
✓ FREE if you participate in
yourwineyourway.com
✓ Revenue model – yearly subscriptions or
fees for cleaning wine data
29. ✓ Measured over x conversations to
distill to y wine conversations
✓ Profiled over 3 million online wine
consumers
✓ FREE if you participate in
yourwineyourway.com
✓ Revenue model – yearly subscriptions
or fees for cleaning wine data
30. Created by Cruvee
✓ Measured over x conversations to
✓
for wine companies,
distill to y wine conversations
Profiled over 3 million online wine
enabling brand control.
consumers
✓ FREE if you participate in
yourwineyourway.com
✓ Revenue model – yearly subscriptions
or fees for cleaning wine data
31. Wineries can enter their
data for FREE and it
syndicates to 50 partners
(and growing) with an
aggregate user base of 1.4
million wine consumers.
One place, fifty outlets.
32. ANY wine tech company can tap
into the API for FREE and without the
requirement to send traffic back to
Cruvee.
37. Serves as a free data portal for wineries to
share normalized information and allows
wineries to leverage this rich tool at no cost.
Added bonus: Data in the
platform can also be used to
enter multiple wine
competitions without having to
fill out their competition forms.
38. Own your message.
Save administration
time. Present your
product properly and
efficiently on the
internet.
42. Turn Fans into Customers
Wineries can leverage
yourwineyourway.com for themselves.
Easy as 1.2.3.
1. Put your wines in yourwineyourway.com
2. Add the FREE Facebook app that adds a
wines tab to your winery’s Facebook
Fanpage with links directly to your site
3. Turn your Fans into Customers
46. b e s.
Tri
s te
Ta
The 100 point system is easy to understand but flawed. Out of the 250K
+ wines produced annually throughout the world, only 30K-40K are
professionally reviewed.
Recommendation is the #1 catalyst for wine buying.
People adhere to Taste Tribes.
Bloggers aggregate wine lovers that
match their “Taste Tribe.”
47. Why not try Badges?
A rating system that is Binary (like it or don’t).
Either the wine earns a badge based upon reviewers’
criteria, or the wine doesn’t, creating a taste taxonomy
that recognizes that we taste differently.
Then syndicate these notes and “digital neckers” for FREE to
help give people meaningful recommendations and help
e-tailers convert sales through digital merchandising of
reviews. Psst – wineries can use this on their sites TOO!
48. Why will it work?
The badge data is syndicated (for FREE)
through digital distribution channels to
anyone who wants to receive and use it.
Distribution is the key to change.
Here are the pioneer bloggers who are
leading the Badge initiative. Feel free to
submit your wines to them.
54. Social Commerce Experiment
Predatory Flash Sale sites were asking
wineries to offer deep discounts and
pay extraordinary fees while only
presenting the highest rated wines.
So we asked:
Can a major social network be used
for social commerce?
60. to all the wine
companies that
have participated in
this experiment!
Wine Tasting (www.winetasting.com) Israeli Wine Direct (www.israeliwinedirect.com)
Bolen Family Estates (www.bolenlegacy.com) Cornerstone Cellars (www.cornerstonecellars.com)
Modus Operandi (www.moduswines.com) Ampelos Cellars (www.ampeloscellars.com)
James David Cellars (www.jamesdavidcellars.com) Charnu Winery (www.charnuwinery.com)
Marita's Vineyards (www.maritasvineyard.com) Marquee Selections (www.marquee.com)
Passaggio (www.passaggiowines.com) Ortman Family Vineyards (www.ortmanwines.com)
Twisted Oak (www.twistedoak.com) JV Wine and Spirits (www.jvwine.com)
Hanzell Vineyards (www.hanzell.com) Robert Keenan Winery (www.keenanwinery.com)
Bonny Doon Vineyards (www.bonnydoonvineyard.com) Foris Vineyards (www.foriswine.com)
61. “The e als
Co Be d
me st I e
Alo
de
aT wi
n ay
T im o ke n em
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ng
In A
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have su ine biz in
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the Dire lly launc s VinTan
ct To Co hed a n k,
with the nsumer ew rout
ir Deals (DTC) su e on
from the perhigh
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Group ” Vines o
n Faceb
ook
- Dr. Xen
o
Here’s hoping you participate
in this FREE service.
63. HR 5034 &Craig Wolf
HR 5034 is the first real
threat to direct shipping
we’ve seen since 2005.
VinTank stands for
wineries. VinTank stands
for direct shipping. We
decided to challenge
the issue head on (the
WSWA) in a fun and
intelligent way.
64. Thus we made Craig Wolf a muppet, used his quotes, and challenged his logic:
http://www.vintank.com/2010/11/unfiltered-3-craig-wolf-and-hr5034/
Craig Wolf enjoyed the “Tosh 2.0” version of his perspective and granted us a
real interview to discuss the issue. The transcript can be found here and is
INCREDIBLY important to read if direct shipping is at all important to you: http://
www.vintank.com/2011/01/inherit-the-wind-the-real-interview-with-craig-wolf/
65. Constructive
Discourse
& Revelation
A great summary of the article by Eric Arnold can be found here:
http://bit.ly/fOdWSB
PS – one of the most
interesting disclosures was
the potential partnership
between Shipcompliant
and the WSWA which
raised more questions than
answers: http://bit.ly/hnrsjj
67. VinTank challenged the
data Snooth represented
as facts with the intention
to surface the reality of
#’s that affect
advertising rates, data
usage, and more with
the intention to give
wineries better context
for making business
decisions.
68. Our post here: http://
bit.ly/et4t6P - what we
discovered was that the
math didn’t add up and
data that wineries gave
Snooth was being used
to increase their SEO to
outrank or rank incredibly
high up in search results
with messaging that is
not an accurate
representation of the SEO
results.
69. As a result of the exercise
we uncovered a huge
problem with
authenticity too: wine
tech pioneer, Eric LeVine,
and his renowned site,
CellarTracker, appeared
to be scraped to power
Snooth’s database:
http://bit.ly/gkeZla
72. Sneak peek
The following slides
represent cool projects
that are coming down
the pipeline from
VinTank. Things that
excite us to the n’th
degree.
73.
74. Share the LOVE
Owners – two African-
American women, one
millennial, one Gen X, first
CarboNZero winery in the
world, presenting New Zealand
Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling
for everyday enjoyment.
Launching an integrated
campaign with an iPhone app
(Share the Love) and
Facebook/Twitter marketing
focus that will create a true
“pay it forward” campaign.
Do good deeds, earn rewards.
75. First ever augmented
reality launch for a wine.
Random do-gooders will have the
eco.love owners show up at their door
with a gift of wine and a flipcam to
share and celebrate their good deeds.
76. A lot of small deeds add
up to big changes. Why
don’t you share the love?
78. iPhone App 2.0 OVERLOAD
We analyzed over 450 iPhone wine
related apps that add up to over
$884.19
Believe us, there’s an app for that...
PalatePress.com will publish our
evaluation...be on the look out for it!
79. Our Next Big Report!
It will come...It will COME...IT
WILL COME!
80. Tentatively titled Crash!
The report about the intersection of wine and digital
will include:
th wi ne on
line ia l.
lleng es wi l soc
rn
ia
,
al cha
A
tu
re
c
Re
so
ITD
W
CRM
es
ine ,
da ial
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EB
lS
So
ta
ne
The
hist
an
ory
Ch
onli
ne
Mobile , mobile, mobile.
of w
ine
81. Tentatively titled Crash!
The report about the intersection of wine and digital
COMING
will include:
SO ON lleng es wi th wi ne on
line
l soc
ia l.
rn
ia
,
al cha
A
tu
re
c
Re
so
ITD
W
CRM
es
ine ,
da ial
al
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EB
lS
So
APRIL 2011
ta
ne
hist The
an
o ry of
Ch
onli
ne
Mobile , mobile, mobile. win
e
84. The new EVOLUTION
There existed a huge hole in
execution of quality customer
engagement through digital.
We believe in social gaming
COMING as a new, relevant and
improved type of
APRIL 2011 engagement.
Wine tasting note, social, and
decision support platforms
were looking for better ways
to service wine companies.
85. VinPass is the first
CROSS PLATFORM
social game that
engages and
rewards consumers
for tasting and
recording their
wine experience.
88. Part of what we do is look
forward to what is next in the
Some insight
wine/tech ecosphere. The
challenges with making
statements about the future of
wine and tech is our industry’s
very slow adoption rate.
So we often have to temper
trends affecting other
segments online with what we
think is possible in the wine
industry.
Here is what we think is in store
for 2011 for wine.
90. The recession forced many wineries to rethink their strategies
as related to channel focus. Many have shifted to prioritizing
DTC business, with e-commerce of highest value.
Wine e-commerce is becoming easier due to the interstate
challenges settling down, platform sophistication, and
market understanding.
91. Wine e-commerce provides the HIGHEST return towards
EBITDA vs. any other direct channel.
The second sale from a consumer after they return home is
far more important than the first sale at the winery.
Wine e-commerce is the fastest growing DTC channel for
wineries.
92. Prediction!
This focus will continue to grow and many wineries, even the
largest enterprise wineries, will see tremendous growth in the
channel and will reinvest for greater returns. Expect better
customer service, more innovative marketing and promotional
activities, and interesting spins on winery direct e-commerce.
93. Our W i sh ...
A true and legal marketing
agent for wineries like an
Expedia for wine.
95. “A bottle of wine begs to be shared; I have
never met a miserly wine lover.”
- Clifton Fadiman
96. sa e
to w
y?
g re
in t a
try ha
Wine is Social
“A bottle of wine begs to be shared; I have
W
never met a miserly wine lover.”
- Clifton Fadiman
There is no stopping the tsunami that is social
media. Our industry is one of the most active
as a percentage of the whole in social media.
97. Evan Chris
Daw Carfi
son
Chris
Joe Edwards Catherine
Meg Barry Davis
n
Roberts Aaro Schuler Hardy
Maker t
Strou Brian Wallace
Solis
There are many, many, many
great thought leaders
participating in helping
educate wineries.
98. Prediction! 50% of US wineries (3000+) will
be participating in social media
in some capacity (blogs, Twitter,
Facebook, Linkedin, other).
10% of US wineries (600+) will
become proficient in 2011 in
leveraging the medium for
increased branding, customer
engagement, customer service,
customer acquisition, PR, and
more.
0.25% (15) will start basic SCRM
(Social CRM).
99. Our W i sh ...
Wine-focused social platforms
will build better winery
engagement tools so wineries
can “fish where the fish are.”
102. Social Commerce
and “Flash in the Pan”
Several were incredibly honest and legitimate outlets for overstocked inventories,
including:
Other emerging outlets seem promising: gilt.com, ruelala.com and lot18.com.
The excess of super-scoring wines (over 90 by any of the major publications) is drying
up. The 4 + 3 will capture the lion’s share of any wine inventory in this segment of the
wine business.
The American consumer has drastically changed buying habits and will perpetuate
services like this. How do Flash sales build image in a luxury category?
103. Prediction:
The implosion of wine flash sales will start in 2011.
Some companies will emerge just to service this
new channel (like http://www.preston-layne.com/
& http://www.newmanwineandspirits.com/).
104. Our Wish...
We hope that whatever models companies
bring, they are not winery punitive models like
many of the predatory flash sale sites of the
last two years.
106. Social Commerce
Groupon, livingsocial.com and
buywithme.com are just a few.
Group buying has started and now
that the genie is out of the bottle,
how will commerce and social
intersect?
-photo courtesy redant.com
107. We will see a wine social commerce platform
emerge in 2011. Some wineries might even
experiment with it (kudos to Chateau
Montelena here for trying a version of it -
http://bit.ly/fvidrU)
109. yo ur
in !
2011, thanks to the incredible
ne ket
adoption and selection of
W i smart phones, the notion of
c
mobile, mobile, mobile will
Po
finally become a reality for the
wine industry.
There are now over 450 wine
apps (or apps that have wine
features) across all mobile
platforms. Some of our
favorites are:
HelloVino Nat Cor.kz Eco.love
Decants
WS
Corkbin RedWhite Vintage Drync
Boston Charts
110. ict ion
P red
ostly ittle if
en m ded l
av e be rovi t will
p ps h nd p 2011 tha ney).
ob ile a facing a s. In e mo l in
M mer nerie to mak ocia
co nsu o wi eed
a lue t ey n em ore s
a ny v ck, th m
eco
tur n (he ps will b
Win e ap
2 011.
111. ..
Wishing that
Apple and other
h .
is
App stores would
W
stop featuring
useless wine apps
and giving poor
ur
customer
experience to O
consumers who
choose to
download them!
113. Image Recognition
Imagine a world where you
can take a pic of a label
and it returns information
about the wine. Sounds like
science fiction? Almost.
The industry doesn’t use UPC
codes well – either we don’t
change from vintage to
vintage or we don’t include
them at all.
114. Sorting through images is
ridiculously HARD.
s ye t to
win e ha
a for and
e dat lized
Th no rma
be anized.
or g
115. A Good Start...
We predict that you will see wine label scanning tools get to
65% in 2011. Wine apps are sick of dirty data or data that are
only used to drive traffic to other peoples sites. Expect to see
more attention on wine data from the tech sector in 2011.
116. Our Wish...
That wineries would understand the importance of
organizing their wine data for success of their brand
online. This will help when image recognition
becomes more prevalent.
118. QR Codes
Yes, I really work!
Quick Response (QR) codes
are two dimensional matrix
barcodes that allow different
types of data to be
embedded within them. The
most common use is to embed
a URL that can be resolved
and loaded in a web browser
when the code is scanned.
119. The proliferation of smart
phones equipped with cameras
and applications capable of
scanning and interpreting the
data within QR codes is driving
the adoption .
120. QR codes are a tool,
not a strategy!
QR codes will gain a
significant foothold in the
wine industry in 2011 with
many wineries printing
them on back labels and
marketing materials.
However, they should be
seen as a least-common-
denominator solution and
just one part of an overall
strategy for connecting
consumers in the
physical/product world
with their digital brand
experience.
121. Wineries must carefully consider their
implementation of QR codes, especially when
printing them on labels, since they become a
permanent part of their packaging and ultimately
reflect back on their brand. Since wine is a long tail
product, wineries should ensure that they have
control over the QR code resolution process.
126. In the words of Brian Solis:
We think it’s far from a fad, it is
actually a new form of engagement
that has yet to enter the wine
category.
127. Prediction
The social gaming
outlets will improve the
level of engagement
opportunities wineries
will have with their
consumers as well as
give a clear indication
of consumer purchasing
patterns. This will all start
with the launch of the
first social game for our
industry, VinPass.
130. VS.
For some reason over the last two years
there has been a giant rift between
traditional wine critics and bloggers (eg -
http://bit.ly/dZoiWm)
131. Creating content and distributing
it is cheaper than ever errr...
actually make that FREE.
The distinction between blogger
and traditional media becomes
more blurry every day.
Many professional writers have
ignored the power of digital.
The role of a professional writer is
changing from paid content
creator to audience aggregator,
reader engagement, content
distribution strategist, free
content creator, marketer, digital
connoisseur.
132. Professional critics embrace digital
Some key professional writers have
understood that the marriage of
digital and treating bloggers not
as a competitors but as partners
elevates their content awareness
and personal brand.
133. Be g
e n
st
th mo
A
Eric Arnold Cyril Penn
Jancis Robinson Leslie Sbroco Jon Bonne Gary Vaynerchuk
Natalie Maclean Lewis Perdue Steve Heimoff Bill Daley
134. Pre
ictio
n
In 2011 you will see the emergence of professional
wine writers entering the digital space. The ones that
take the time to understand digital will elevate in mass
awareness. The ones who don’t will be inundated by
what they call “mob mentality” and constant barrage
of public criticism that will chip away at their credibility
to this and the next generation of wine consumers.
135. Our Wish...
Would love to see innovative
collaboration between professional
wine writers, wine bloggers and old
media publications.
137. Out with the
old....reviews that is!
Ok – yes, the big boys dominate.
Yes, key critics have been the
gate keepers to wine
recommendations.
And yes, the internet, especially
with social media, is beginning
to level the playing field and
introduce new ways to
recommend wine.
138. In with the new...types of reviews
The Facebook “Like”
function is a game
changer in more ways
than this one slide can
demonstrate.
We predict more
etailers and online
platforms will start
using new systems for
recommending wine.
3 of the most influential review sites!
139. Our wish...
More wineries and wine retailers will start
using the “like” buttons and CellarTracker
scores.
Badges will get their time in the limelight
and that etailers and other wine sites see
this as an opportunity to leverage tech to
help consumers.
143. Twitter is a “news platform” - http://bit.ly/hJDxwx
There is often too much content, so the emergence of new
types of platforms for people to “organize and aggregate”
content for their friends/networks (paper.li, http://bit.ly/gCGZQZ,
or to make the stream of content easier to read are emerging,
like:
Flipboard Flud
144. Even in our own
industry we have
strong content
curation.
Blend of content curation...
and creation.
146. Prediction
There will be a new push in content curation
for wine sites in 2011 due to the flood of wine
information on the internet.
147. Our Wish...
We hope to see companies like Flud and Flipboard add
wine as a major category. Imagine them aggregating all
wine tweets?
We REALLY hope to see them make business development
deals with super content manufacturers like Jancis
Robinson, Natalie Maclean, and CellarTracker.com.
We would also love to see respected wine celebrities
aggregate and curate content. Imagine “Best Wine
blogs and tweets by Jancis Robinson” or the Institute of
Masters of Wine aggregating all content from students of
the MW program.
150. The wine industry has one of the most complicated CRM
needs due to the diverse nature and needs of the
channels it services (ecom, wine club, telephone, tasting
room, direct to trade, traditional 3-tier).
The industry is gated by disparate systems where the
lowest common denominator is legacy systems. Even
with the most sophisticated CRM tool (e.g.
Salesforce.com), it continues to be gated by the systems
it needs to integrate.
Currently CRM in our industry is loosely described as
“identify consumers, segment, send an email, telemarket
or send a mail offering.”
151. Prediction
CRM will actually start
to materialize in 2011
and the industry will
begin leveraging it
for the benefit of DTC
sales.
152. Our Wish...
Instead of business intelligence CRM we
dream of a wine world that has an
actionable CRM.
153. IMAGINE..
...a world where a wine club member calls, and
you know: how long they have been a member,
their LTV, their preferences, their RFM, and more to
extend quality service.
154. IMAGINE..
...that data leveraged by an e-commerce platform
presents better offers to club members and recent
visitors.
...the new world of SCRM (Social CRM) and the
ability to service customers based upon more
than buying history but also on conversations.
155.
156. There is much more to this story...
But 2011 will reveal more to us as technology
matures and our industry uses it and gains real
learnings. We are lucky to be part of this journey.