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Wine should follow Top Gear's example and look to entertain not educate

Published:  19 September, 2014

The wine industry should look at the massive success of BBC's Top Gear in how to make a potentially complex subject entertaining to the public, according to advertising guru, Sir John Hegarty.

Top GearTop Gear is not about cars but entertainment and wine should do the same, said Sir John Hegarty

The wine industry should look at the massive success of BBC's Top Gear in how to make a potentially complex subject entertaining to the public, according to advertising guru, Sir John Hegarty.

Sir John, founder of the ground-breaking Bartle Bogle Hegarty advertising agency, said the wine industry has to work much harder at simplifying the language and branding around wine so that it becomes attractive to more consumers.

BBC'S Top Gear had achieved global success by stopped talking about the inner workings of cars, stressed Sir John, speaking at this week's Wine & Spirit Trade Association conference. "Top Gear doesn't really talk about cars it is about being entertaining," he said.

"You have to give consumers an access point. You have to be different," added Sir John.

The craft beer market has been able to grow so quickly because it had found a way to make beer exciting and not gone down the real ale, CAMRA route that so many people find off putting.

Equally wine needs to find a way to become less "reverential" and attract more consumers to talk about it in a way they feel comfortable with.

Consumers are no longer sitting waiting to be sold to, but want to be engage with brands and products that they can be "involved" with or "entertained" by.

He pointed to the coffee market and how drinking a coffee was now part of a social occasion. Champagne has shown the way forward, he argued, by making it all about celebration.

He cited the original version of Oddbins as being a retailer that really stood out from the pack and talked to him about wine in a way he could understand. "It was on my wavelength."

By comparison the wine retail market was now pretty "moribund" other than independent retailers like The Sampler that are offering the "added value" you need to stand out.

Sir John said he "would love to see independent wine merchants flourish" but was not convinced many were doing anything particularly different.

He said most of the major newspapers no longer have a serious wine column because they had become "boring" and were not written in a way to attract large numbers of readers.

He urged the trade to capture the "magic of wine" as the "flavour of life" and use that as its DNA or central PR message.

"You have to go from function to purpose. Coca-Cola gives you refreshment, but it also brings you 'happiness'. What does wine do?" he asked.

"Don't just make it about food. You have got to have an idea that is bigger than that."

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