WHAT'S A META-BRAND?
And why English Sparkling Wine needs one
“Let’s have a glass of Champagne”. Isn’t that just about the most cheering sentence in the English language? Champagne owns the moment of celebration and is a meta-brand.
It’s nice when you share something good that you know with your family and they also become fans.
This happened in my family with English sparkling wine. Motivated by reading an obscure footnote in a Times article way back in 2004, I travelled to a nearby West Sussex village to buy a couple of bottles of mysterious-sounding Nyetimber. (I hand-carried one to Sydney to prove to a cynical friend and wine buff that Brits can make world-class wine. He literally didn’t for a moment believe we made any.) I have been an advocate for English wine ever since.
So this last Christmas festive period was a good reminder for me of something I have also unflinchingly supported for an almost equally long period: English sparkling wine needs a ‘meta-brand’ like Champagne.
How do I know? Because we got through a lot of English sparkling wine over the holiday. But like with Champagne you always need a good excuse. Like: “It’s Christmas Eve!”, “Christmas Morning!”, “Boxing Day!”- you’ve just come in from a bracing Christmas walk, - you’ve just pulled the smoked salmon out of the fridge, “Oh now it’s New Year’s eve already!” etc. All these moments are moments to celebrate. To say “Who’d like some Champagne?” But we are English, and just as the French wouldn’t ever say: “Que diriez-vous d’un verre de vin mousseux anglais?” So we must drink our own stuff. Anyway,why would we prefer to drink Champagne when our stuff is better? (Punchy I know, but the French don’t hold back – so why should we?)
But: “Who’s for some English sparkling wine?” just sounds so worthy and flat. The complete opposite of what the product is. The phrase has hardly got out of your mouth before you have already killed the moment.
A few years ago my agency – Pull – did some research on British wine consumers and English wine. This was provoked by my hypothesis that English wine growers (at least the sparkling ones – more on that later) would sell more of their product if people knew what to call it. Now dear reader, you are probably a marketer and are already thinking: “well doh – yes”.
But if you were in the English wine industry you might already be reaching for the smelling salts. Why? Because the support for finding a suitable name for English sparkling wine is minimal across the industry. Believe me - I found out the hard way. But why on earth do you think that is the case? you say under your marketing hat. So let’s examine what is holding the industry back from the best marketing move it could possibly make?
So I’ve been lobbying about the need for a meta brand for English sparkling wine since 2017. (For the rest of this piece I’m going to use the ugly acronym ESW – which it itself kind of makes the point) In fact to be honest I’d stopped since a number of more pressing events have sort of pushed it to the back-burner. But last Christmas got me thinking again as the ESW flowed. Is it really a bad idea?
So let’s look at all the arguments put forward over the last few years for not bothering to find a name. Believe me, these have all been put forward with the kind of passion normally reserved for doing something – not for not doing something.
All previous attempts have failed. There were two attempts that we know of: One to call it ‘Merrett’ – after the Englishman who invented Champagne (no really – look it up), the other ‘Britagne’ which is kind of self-explanatory.
What about Welsh and Scottish wine? My proposal involved nominating southern England as a PDO or ‘protected designation of origin’ as Sussex was for sparkling wine in 2022. But discussions I have been party to in the ‘British’ wine industry show that English wine growers are terribly nervous about appearing insufficiently ‘diverse and inclusive’ in not involving their Welsh and Scottish counterparts. Who are increasing in number. This is almost bordering on saying that talking about ‘English wine’ would be ‘racist’. . .
“We already have brands”. When we presented our wine buyers research, it became very apparent that there was a strong polarization of views between the bigger brands (Nyetimber, Chapel Down for instance) and the smaller ones. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the smaller brands thought creating a meta-brand made complete sense. The bigger brands thought that it would undermine their advantage: “People are already buying our wine be name” (which is true).
1. “English wine is too young and innovative to be pinned down” This is perhaps the most nuanced argument. I would be much more sympathetic to this angle if it was accompanied by a target date for finding a meta-brand name for ESW. Some British wine growers and hangers-on believe that a true English style hasn’t emerged yet. They point at the growing proliferation of still whites, Rosés and even reds that are emerging, and all the experimentation and innovation that is taking place. By observation I would support the argument that the level of experimentation going on in British wine is quite possibly higher than any other region right now.
How strong are these arguments? Strong enough to turn over the idea that ESW needs a meta-brand?
The last Christmas break gave me the opportunity to reflect on that in the cold light of seven years since I first proposed the idea. I don’t think any of these arguments have any real weight against the idea of a meta-brand. So let’s look at them one-by-one.
All previous attempts have failed. True, but they never had a chance. That’s primarily because they started with a solution when they should have started by defining and quantifying the problem. Then generated competition for the solution. The first thing the industry needs to agree on is that there is a problem to be solved, and that they are collectively going to do something about it. Anyone throwing a name into the ring is going to be met with: “I don’t like it”, “That will never fly” and the ‘not invented here’ syndrome. Pull has created a number of brands. It’s not easy, but the job should be handed to an agency. They can create options and test them with consumers.
What about Welsh and Scottish wine? The reason the PDO ‘Sussex’ was never really going to work was because as others have pointed out, no-one can really say: “That tastes like Sussex” – i.e. what they are drinking couldn’t possibly have been made in say Kent or Hampshire. On the one hand, although you could argue that the southern counties of England are just an extension of the Champagne region making the same product in all but name, they are (obviously) not in France. A PDO is given to an area that is “recognised for its quality and distinctive characteristics that are exclusively a result of the geographical environment it comes from”. As far as I can see (there’s bound to be an exception) Wales and Scotland are not producing ‘ESW’. They are using alternative grapes like Seyval Blanc. The Champagne region of France is considered marginal for Chardonnay, so the South of England is really marginal. Wales and Scotland would be reckless. So let Scotland and Wales go their own way. They might be able to create their own PDOs.
We already have brands. You do, but your brand would be stronger if people knew what it was – indisputably something good.
“English wine is too young and innovative to be pinned down”. Good ESW has been produced for more than a quarter of a century now. And just like the brand argument in 3, naming ESW is not mutually exclusive with the English wine industry developing in all sorts of other directions. But those directions are confusing at present. If I’m in a supermarket and want to quickly buy some ESW, how do I tell it’s ESW and not say a Welsh Seyval Blanc at a glance?
What do you think? You can see the research here. Do you think ESW would be easier to buy and identify if it had a name like Champagne or Prosecco?
And what other meta-brands can you think of? I’m not sure I can really think of any.