Wines sales have been flat over the last decade with little growth. Millennials have so many choices in craft beer, mixed drinks, and even cannabis that has cut into wine’s share of alcohol consumption. Suddenly, in flies Cooper Hawk, who is turning the tasting room and wine club concept on its head by bringing a new experience to the consumer in their hometown. Cooper Hawk is a wine disrupter challenge how the wine industry works.
Instead of coming to Napa to sample their wines, Cooper Hawk opens restaurants and brings food and wine into communities. They make the wine tasting experience more accessible and the ability to purchase it locally even easier.
Their marketing effort is a simple idea of bringing their wine to people, instead of trying to get the people to their winery.
Like McDonald’s, instead of selling hamburgers through retailers, they bring their wine tasting experience into your local neighborhood and connect with consumers in their home town.
Last year they sold 750,000 cases of winemaking Cooper Hawk a top 30 winery in the U.S.
With 34 tasting room/restaurants in Florida, the Mid-West and the East Coast, they sold almost 300 million dollars in revenue and now have 375,000 wine club members. They earned 10 million dollars in profits and recently took in 700 million dollars in investment for expansion.
Tim McEnery, the founder, used the model of the brewpub making wine on-site based on California grapes. Over time, and with investment partners, he kept expanding by recognizing that he could more easily educate consumers about wine varieties when the tasting room was down the road not 3,000 miles away.
Lessons in Being a Disrupter
- Know what everyone in your category is doing, and then try something different.
- Understand the real challenge of wine marketing – getting people to taste your wine and think outside your category. In Cooper Hawk’s case, they were doing for wine what Starbucks did for coffee.
- Know your customer and the challenges they have in the category. Make your product accessible and reasonably priced for the quality delivered.
Disruption in any category begins by finding a hook, a point of difference, and by executing it brilliantly. It starts by having an insight into the challenges of your customer’s face.
Sip. Swirl. Disrupt.
You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. Visit my website at www.themarketingsage.com The conversation is free, and we can explore working together.
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