Mass customization the M&Ms way

Okay, maybe I've been living under a rock but since when did Mars start offering custom printed M&Ms? I discovered this news in a very smart (if ugly) ad that also had an offer for a free bag along with a special promotional code for tracking purposes. Brilliant. Textbook. I'm crazy-jealous. And of course I'm looking for any opportunity to buy some.

That was Tuesday. On Wednesday I received an email from Room & Board with the subject line: Furniture Designed By You, Built By Us. Basically, you get to mix-and-match fabrics and finishes and whatnot to get the features and look you want. Chairs, tables, cabinets -- whatever -- they can customize it.

This, of course, just feeds my frustration with wineries, all of which are inflexible and hidebound when it comes to custom(er) service. Just think about how rigid their wine clubs are. You want the good stuff? You going to have to take some of the not-so-good stuff. Your want three whites and one red? Sorry, this quarter's shipment is all red. You know how it goes. Can you imagine a winery ever attempting something as customer-centric as Mars or R&B??

I can.

Hey, did I mention that, in addition to the message, you also get to choose what color M&Ms you want?!

QPR wine club

The other day I was reacquainted with the California Wine Club, a cataloger of artisan California wines. While most of their inventory is, um, underwhelming, they do fill an important niche in wine marketing, one that I would like to emulate.

For my catalog I'd put together an evolving list of affordable wines from . . . wherever . . . and market them to adventurous, value-minded consumers without all the tired cliches and filler one typically sees in direct-to-consumer efforts.

Turns out, the concept for this venture has been right under my nose for years: QPRwines.

My friend Neil Monnens publishes a wine buying guide that groups wines by their rating, lists them by price, and then ranks them by value. The ranking is effectively the wine's "quality-to-price ratio." Hence QPR.

We've seen "bang for the buck" wines before but, until Neil wrapped his spreadsheet around it, nobody had ever pursued such a rigorous and wide-ranging analysis. Each issue (he puts out 18 a year) profiles a different varital, with all the recent vintages included.

So, for example, you might see an issue devoted to West Coast Pinot Noirs with all the 90-point wines grouped together, each one listed in ascending order of price. (The point score is an average of at least three major critic's -- you know who they are -- and the price is the lowest retail price he finds at wine-searcher.) From this list of 90-point Pinots, Neil find the average price, homing in on those that cost less than half.

These are the Value wines. The very same wines I would want in my catalog. Hell, the same wines I would want in my cellar.

The catalog would let people choose whatever varietals interest them for quarterly or bi-monthly shipments of high QPR wines. If each shipment had two wines, ideally one would be under $20, the other under, say $50. Naturally, a free subscritpion would be included.

I can't wait to see what Neil thinks . . .

The job of the critic

The other day in The New York Times I came across this article by A.O. Scott. Noting that "Pirates of the Caribbean" grossed $130-odd million its first weekend, despite negative reviews, he limns the discrepancy between what critics think and how the public behaves, as well as some basic questions about taste, economics and the nature of popular entertainment.

I couldn't help but want to relate it to wine. Here's what hooked me:

"The modern blockbuster ... can be seen as the fulfillment of the democratic ideal the movies were born to fulfill. To stand outside that happy communal experience and, worse, to regard it with skepticism or with scorn, is to be a crank, a malcontent, a snob. So we [critics] are damned if we don’t. And sometimes, also, if we do. When our breathless praise garlands advertisements for movies the public greets with a shrug, we look like suckers or shills. But these accusations would stick only if the job of the critic were to reflect, predict or influence the public taste."

You mean, it isn't?? Not according to O.A.

"[It's] the job of the Hollywood studios, in particular of their marketing and publicity departments, and it is the professional duty of critics to be out of touch with — to be independent of — their concerns. These companies spend tens of millions of dollars to persuade you that the opening of a movie is a public event, a cultural experience you will want to be part of. The campaign of persuasion starts weeks or months — or, in the case of multisequel cash cows, years — before the tickets go on sale, with the goal of making their purchase a foregone conclusion by the time the first reviews appear."

Granted, wineries don't have tens of millions of dollars to spend on "persuasion" -- not even tens of thousands -- but shouldn't they share the same goal of making your purchase decision one that is independent of reviews, scores and medals?

Of course they should. But how . . . ?

Too many labels, too few brands

One of the things that never fails to get my goat is when I hear people in the wine trade use the word “brand” when really all they’re talking about is a label. The two are not interchangeable.

A brand is the invisible layer of meaning that surrounds a wine. A label is merely the most visible manifestation of it.

The distinction is worth making. But first, two important points:

1. As of November 2006, there were some 5,970 wineries in the US. A lot of people are making wine.
2. Of the 78,252 wines listed in the eRobertParker.com database, 36 percent have scores of 90 or above. A lot of people are making excellent wine.

If you’re a producer looking to make money and not just wine, these numbers should be all the motivation you need to actively engage in building your brand.

That’s because, no matter how much time and money you spend improving your wine, there will still be hundreds of wines better than yours. And that’s if you succeed in making better wine. If you don’t, then you’ve placed the success of your business in the hands of critics. I can’t imagine any entrepreneur would want that.

“Better” is not the point; “different” is.

"I think as the market gets more
crowded, we look for things that
are different."

-- James Laube of Wine Spectator from Wines & Vines
article on what top editors think makes for a good story

Creating differences between your wine and everyone else’s’ in the consumers’ mind is what building a brand is all about. And while this doesn’t happen independent of your product, neither is it just about what’s inside the bottle.

Marty Neumeier offers one of the best definitions of the process:

“A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company… Each person creates his or her own version of it. While companies can’t control this process, they can influence it by communicating the qualities that make this product different than that product. When enough individuals arrive at the same gut feeling, a company can be said to have a brand."

As consumers, we know this to be true. A moment’s reflection on any of our favorite brands proves it. My feelings about the Audi I drive are a function of a) the car itself, my experience of its design and performance, b) my values and how the car expresses them, c) what my friends think d) what “tribe” owning an Audi puts me in e) Audi marketing, f) car magazines, and so forth.

The point is, businesses that get branding discourse in differences. Business that don’t, preach platitudes. So what’s different about your brand?