New Wine Marketing World With Gino Colangelo

If I wanted to get into wine and lived in New York City – Bam! I’d be on his doorstep until I got the job. If I’ve learned anything in my communications with Gino Colangelo, it’s how down to earth and levelheaded he is. It’s rare to find a person like Gino. I managed it with my own marriage partner, and I’ve just found the same savoir faire in Gino, through my writing and editing processes with him. Gino’s self-effacing and very real, so take his comments to heart, and you’ll also grow, especially you wine pros.

Gino Colangelo of Colangelo & Partners PR in a relaxed moment.

Part II – New Wine Marketing World

Jo: PART I ~ Come Over October… Well, you’ve just put a whole new spin on it, knowing the source of Come Over October. Share and Pair Sundays takes us to a new height, as Level II. Now, how will you grow and define this adventure’s level, with partners author Karen MacNeil and PR executive Kimberly Charles. I’m all in, because it’s morphing well beyond the impressions and articles that don’t differentiate it from “Come Over October” to “Share and Pair Sundays?”

Gino; Well, one thing that Karen, Kimberly, and I have always agreed on, from the beginning, was that if we didn’t reach consumers with our message, we weren’t going to be successful. That’s because there’s a lot of internal chatter within the wine community about challenges to wine, and we all know we don’t need to remind each other. What we need to do is tell positive stories about wine to people who drink wine, right? And that’s our definition of success.

How we measure it is tougher, but we know it when we’re in retail stores. People in shopping aisles are hearing radio ads about Come Over October, or seeing in-store signage for Come Over October. That’s when we know we’ve achieved some success, and when we break through to consumer press. We know that because Karen, with a very active newsletter and is an active writer, gets feedback from her community of wine lovers about the campaign. That’s how we define success, when we know we’re reaching consumers.

When we’ve reached consumers, we’ve been successful.

14,000 Mentions For

Come Over October

Jo: So, you’ve activated more than 14,000 relocations. Congratulations, by the way, and what does it take to get retailers to generally engage rather than just technically participate?

Gino: Um, you have 1,400 retailers. Clear.  I spent 10 years in the retail business before getting into the PR business. I know how busy retailers are, and how they have to respond in the moment to 10 different things happening all at once. So, the only way to really engage retailers is to prove to them that our campaign can help them sell more wine.

And, we were lucky enough to have the support from Constellation Brands early on, in our campaign. They activated an in-store promotion with Kroger’s over 600 to 800 stores, and their data demonstrated that implementation of our campaign increased sales. It was pretty dramatic, by factors of like 10 percent, from running ads promoting Come Over October. So, proving concept to retails is critical, and getting that first buy-in from Kroger, by way of Constellation, gave us proof of concept.

Our campaign increased sales. It was pretty dramatic, by factors of like 10 percent.

Good Working Companions

Jo: It’s great to have good working companions, isn’t it? It’s just wonderful. But, the wine industry is still struggling, right? We both know that. We all know that. Do you see campaigns like this as a lifeline or a long game?

Gino: Kind of both, I think, you know. We know small producers have used the Come Over October platform to drive sales in the short term. We’ve seen evidence of wine sales being driven by our campaign with Constellation’s big retail brands. That’s the short term. So, we’ve got some new activity now. Jackson Family Wines was so successful with come over October in their tasting rooms, that they expanded to a year-round program. It’s engaging for tasting room visitors with more informal and a less intricate kind of promotions.

It’s just encouraging of continual engagement, with wine lovers. That’s all the short term benefit. And in the long term, we believe we’re starting to see evidence of more balance in media about wine and health, wine and lifestyle, the benefits of moderate consumption, and how wine helps sociability.

Jo: Right you are!

Moderate Wine Consumption

Gino: And there’s a loneliness epidemic. So, in the longer term, we’re looking to create a positive narrative around wine. And we’re seeing glimmers of hope around that.

Jo: It’s very interesting for me that you’re a PR professional who became a campaign founder. And what did crossing that line teach you about the difference between promoting wine and truly advocating for it?

Gino: To me, there’s really not a difference, because we are a wine focused, public relations agency. We tell stories about our clients and their wines and their regions, because we do a lot of regional work, from County Classico, or Prosecco DOC, or Washington Wines, and on and on. Lake County, for example. Telling positive stories about wine, how wine is culture, wine is history, and wine is food. It’s what we’re advocating for through the campaign. It’s really no different, except now we’re doing it agnostically. You know, it’s just about wine culture broadly, as opposed to a specific region or producer.

Wine is history and culture.

Wine Business Missing The Target?

Jo: Okay, so what does the industry consistently get wrong, do you think, when trying to bring in a new demographic of wine enthusiasts, for instance. How do we miss the target?

Gino: I don’t think there’s anything like that in the industry that’s global, which is an entity that represents wine. And, you know, wine is so diverse by nature. Small producers are working in their own vineyards, in 50 States across the United States, and in countries around the world. And everybody has their own approach, their own style of wine making, their own way of communicating. So there’s no monolithic entity to say that’s doing something right or wrong.

I think that what wine people around the world can do, and whether that means you’re a producer, a distributor, or a retailer restaurant, it’s just simply encourage people to try wine, give them the means to do it. Have prices and styles that are approachable for all people of different incomes and different sophistication of palettes. People are doing that and have always done that, but marketing messages should embrace that span of interest.

It’s just about a broader understanding that we, as a wine community, needs to constantly advocate and communicate. And we can’t just talk to each other We’ve got to talk to consumers.

Each vineyards is unique, all around the globe.

This Gino Colangelo’s PR Marketing story will continue with the Third Episode. Each part of the story is very enlightening, and I also respect the time it takes to read a very long interview. We’re living in a time of major distractions.

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Written by Jo Diaz, a partner of Diaz Communications, who is helping to make stars realize their dreams.
Edited by partner Jose Diaz.

To reprint, please contact Jo Diaz: [email protected]