The Official blog of Dark Matter, Inc.

Our two cents:
Good example of a QR code-based campaign in the wine and spirits category that goes beyond simple product information. It’s importnat to note that the strategic idea was in place at the onset, which will likely contribute to the overall success of the campaign. Furthermore, there is a clear value exchange between brand and customer, a concept that is paramount for any mobile endeavor.

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Our two cents:
The wine and spirits category is rich with mobile possibilities, but severely lacking in successful case studies. Like all companies, wineries have dedicated marketers with vastly different comprehension levels of what mobile is and how it should be used. This is why many gravitate towards individual tactics such as mobile apps or QR codes, because it’s easier for someone trying to solve the mobile equation to create simple formulas in their head like mobile=app. Unfortunately, most marketers never fully think through the business case for apps, nor do they have a clear understanding of what succes looks like. The same money they put into developing an app can be used to create and manage a mobile database. See aktivatr as an example. Mobile databases gives wine marketers a dedicated customer channel that works consistently across all devices, not just smartphones, which only constitute 40% of the U.S. population.

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One part history, one part food pairing, one part recipe and a healthy dose of scoring. Wine Spectator’s Guide to Napa Valley tablet application ($5 in the app store) does a good job of bringing together all of the essential ingredients that make up the valley. While there are a few design flaws with the tablet experience itself, such as portrait-only orientation, they’ve done a reasonably good job of re-creating the magazine for the tablet.

Aside from the written content, handful of videos and interactive map of Napa attractions, the main functionality of the app is centered around the Wine Spectator scores, which of course is what WS really does. Simple search-based functionality allows readers to easily navigate to vintages and price ranges. However, the search results were at times surprising. Were there really no cabs under $100 that received +94pts in 2008?

At the end of the day, the question for any premium app is whether or not it’s worth the price tag. In this case, yes. Although Wine Spectator should consider adding in additional functionality such as wine trivia games (which have huge cross-over appeal) and some type of social media integration to allow cork dorks to easily share (or at least brag) about their WS tablet experiences. WS should also add more content to the history section, possibly be teaming up with Lin Weber, who has written extensively on Napa’s local history.

January 11, 2011

Danny Brager, Vice President and Group Client Director, Beverage Alcohol
Jim Greco, Vice President, Region Manager, Beverage Alcohol

Over the course of the next 10 years, “millennial” consumers (those currently aged 21-34) will make up 40 percent of American 21 and older. So how does this demographic approach their alcohol beverage purchases? Nielsen analyzed millennial consumer attitudes and preferences to understand the generation’s significant impact on the beverage alcohol industry.

Millennials are redefining the beverage alcohol landscape and will continue to do so in the years ahead. Without a doubt, millennials are a large and influential generation and alcohol beverage companies need to know their taste and buying preferences in order to take advantage of the trends that can greatly impact business.

Highlights of our findings:

• Compared to the general population, millennials are more likely to trade back up to more expensive alcohol beverage brands as the economy improves.
• Millennial consumers are more likely to equate product cost with quality.
• Millennials are more likely to explore new and different alcohol beverage products and will be even more likely to buy a locally-made or produced product knowing it may help the local economy.
• An added boost for marketers employing social or traditional media to influence behavior, millennials are slightly more likely to plan their purchases versus purchase on impulse in today’s down economy.
• Millennials’ tendency to experiment and try new things will keep them versatile, skipping between a variety of alcoholic beverages. While the majority of millennials still prefer beer, they purchase relatively more wine and spirits than older generations did at a comparable age. Nielsen’s research shows that as consumers age, their lifestyle transitions typically result in a relative shift from beer to wine and spirits. Given that current millennial preferences between beer, wine and spirits diverge from prior generations, future consumption preferences also become less predictable.
• By 2036, the majority of consumers age 21 and over will be multicultural. Hispanics, in particular, are swelling the ranks of these newer legal drinking age consumers and their tastes are influenced both by cultural factors, such as their degree of acculturation, as well as attitudes that include a willingness to try new things and openness to be influenced by other consumers’ suggestions.

Understanding how Millennials’ product preferences may change as they age, while at the same time recognizing the alcohol beverage buying habits of younger, ethnic consumers will be essential for alcohol beverage companies to future-proof their portfolios. Leveraging social media will be a critical marketing strategy for alcohol beverage companies to communicate with Millennial consumers and make their brands relevant with this generation.

About Nielsen’s Millennial Study
Nielsen’s analysis is based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative research examining dynamics such as consumer attitudes, behavior, lifestyle, media and retail preferences to gain insight into today’s alcohol beverage consumer. The research, conducted in Q2 2010, includes online survey responses from 7,500 millennial generation consumers of legal drinking age (21 – 34), geographically and demographically representative of the total U.S. population.

While behavioral targeting is nothing new in the online world, it’s still something of a novelty for mobile. Mostly because we still lack the scale, tehcnology and inventory to do this effectively. However, the growing trend of using behavioral targeting techniques continues to gain traction across the entire spectrum of mobile, not just advertising. Simple demographic profiling, which is how media is traditionally purchased, seems flat and one dimensional when looking at mobile users. Take the retail sector for instance. In our experience, retailers don’t care so much that their target may be men 25-34, they care about why they walk into a store, scan a product with a barcode scanning app and then buy the product in the store itself. That type of behavioral understanding, which addresses the “why” vs. “who” approach to shoppers is the core of why behavioral targeting so effective.

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