ICCWS: New technological trends impacting wine marketing

By Jo Gilbert

Published: 01 June, 2016

Bottlebooks' Jonathan Harclerode joined a panel of e-business wine experts at the ICCWS last week to discuss how to make collecting and sharing wine data more efficient.

As the information exchange platform which allowed visitors to books and plan their schedules ahead of the LWF, Bottlebooks was well placed to give insights on this topic.

Founder and CEO Jonathan Harclerode highlighted the importance of data to the wine industry, which he puts at a cost of $3.5 million a year.

He said: "Our baseline figure is that the industry spends around 5% of its $70 billion annual revenues on data. This is based on a few data points: Dr. Damien Wilson conducted a survey of how much other data-intensive industries spend on information. Data costs for Obamacare, for example are estimated at 1-6%.

"Producers we have spoken to with international distribution easily fill out more than 200 information requests per year. Also, importers we have met with have confirmed that wine data is an issue for them, and many are making investments at the moment to address it. This confirms they believe the efficiency of collecting wine information has a material impact on their business."

Harclerode was joined by Matthew Protti, co-founder and CEO of BlackSquare, a leading global alcohol e-commerce platform and the Global Wine Database; software developer David Lowe from Big Pinots; and Dr. Damien Wilson of Sonoma State University.

One of the questions put to Harclerode was how Bottlebooks will persuade the thousands of time-stretched paper-buried producers to provide information for its database.

Bottlebooks logo

Harclerode said: "We work directly with leading importers and event organisers to make their next information request with Bottlebooks instead of a custom Excel template, so there is no additional effort for producers.

"Producers can also take advantage of other features such as PDF information sheet printing, microsite creation tools, and even hosting their own tastings using Bottlebooks.

David Lowe highlighted the importance of first confirming market demand for the product, and then proceeding in an iterative fashion, incorporating customer feedback from each successive version.

Bottlebooks have also recently announced a data partnership with Matthew Protti's Global Wine Database, a partnership which will look to enable wine businesses to move their wine information between professional wine data management systems.

"Global Wine Database is excited to integrate with Bottlebooks to enable producers to use their wine information across both platforms," said Matthew Protti, BlackSquare's CEO and co-founder.

"Having a standard way to transmit trade-related wine information is a significant step forward for the wine industry."

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