Wine purchases are never made in a vacuum. But too many wine brands create advertising campaigns as if they were. Sure, if you’re the only wine being considered, maybe your beautiful vineyard imagery or your luscious grape vine scenes are going to trigger something emotional in a person. But that’s not how it works. Almost every vineyard on the planet is located in a beautiful setting and all the grapes grow on vines. And yes, they all have caring wine makers inspecting the crop. And they all have glorious barrel rooms where people taste the wines. None of that will differentiate your brand from the others. When thinking about creating an advertising campaign for a wine, remember this:

Up to 80% of wine purchase decisions are made at the shelf.

According to Nielsen, 50% to 80% of wine purchase decisions are made at the shelf. That means three things will affect the purchase decision: your wine label, name, and brand recall. In most cases, the wine label is kinda set in stone and you rarely get to name and launch a wine from scratch. That leaves brand recall.

Brand recall is the one area that has a tremendous influence on the wine purchase. The advertising and brand marketing messages you create, therefore need to be unique, memorable and ownable. We’ve all been there, standing in the wine aisle staring at what seems like thousands of wine labels. When one of them catches your attention, you instinctively try to figure out why. Have I had this? Have I heard of this? Did I drink too much of this one night and act like a knucklehead?

This is the moment you better have a sticky, simple message. For Bogle, it’s “Better with Bogle.” Anything is better with Bogle Wine. But it was important to never say that in the wine advertising. Better to get specific. Overly specific. Random Tuesdays are better with Bogle. Visiting in-laws are better with Bogle. Tantrumming kids are better with Bogle. Nights out that devolve into political debates are better, DJs who play only 80’s synth music are better, overly sharing neighbors are better. etc.

Better with Bogle is a simple hook.

But having a campaign platform you can personalize to specific subcategories allows the consumer to take ownership and have a wine that is for them. Like, we didn’t just say, “sporting events” are better with Bogle, we said “Fantasy Football is better with Bogle” and we sponsored the Fantasy Football Channel on SiriusXM. So when that person is standing in that aisle, overwhelmed by choice, and they see the Bogle label, they remember something unique about this brand that no other brand has said to them.

And if you do have the opportunity to start from scratch, choose a name like “Fat Bastard.” This French wine turned the stuffy French wine category on its head and made a name for itself just by choosing a great name for itself.