Brands for whom, brands for why-

Posted on | August 10, 2005

Confined to the house by bad tonsilitis, I finally find the time to listen to a little Radio France Inter. Replay of an excellent programme on the «Rue des entrepreneurs [the road of the entrepreneurs]» about brands. They talk about lots of intelligent things in as much as they weren’t talking about wine.

Several opinions come to mind. In particular that of the consultant who explains that a brand, to begin with, is simply a better product than the others, made by a more gifted carftsman (or who works harder-) than the others. Little by llittle, the name of this man or of his product becomes a model of superior quality. Then it becomes a brand, the man often being forgotten. And the reasons for the current decline of many brands, is that perhaps little by little they have forgotten the importance of the word QUALITY and too many limit themselves to selling by marketing.

Now, since the beginning of the year, I don’t know if you have remarked, in the world of wine, one talks a lot about brands. New brands. Brands for the young. Brands for women. Brands for export. Conceived by «marketing agencies», packaged by «stylists», they are launched with the help of millions of Euros and lots of publicity and merchandising. But nowhere or almost nowhere does one speak of quality- Without doubt I am going to pass for a bird of ill omen but I have the impression that we’re being led astray. Nothings outmodes faster than a “mode’. Nothing is graver nor more suicidal than to think that the consumer is an i- and that beautiful packaging will make a lousy product more popular

A better wine than its homogenous neighbour, a little more expensive perhaps, where the difference in price is fully justified by the superior pleasure it will procure, these are the wines and thus the brands we lack. So I believe.

Hervè Bizeul

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