‘Shelf-talking’ to wine drinkers via their mobile could tempt them to buy your wine – and save on costly store promotions

The billboard QR code for the film 28 Weeks Later could be seen scanned into a mobile from a mile away

NEW RESEARCH reveals that Britain has around 300,000 new adult drinkers every year. That’s nearly a third of a million more people likely to get confused as they stare blankly down the wine aisle.

The recent findings of the annual Wilson Drinks Report might show an increase in the number of adult drinkers but founder Tim Wilson says: “Consumers are still so confused when they’re choosing wine – they stand in the supermarket aisle and they’re faced with a wall.”

When I met Tim last week to discuss the WDR report, we agreed there’s got to be an easier way to demystify wine once and for all – and we came to the conclusion it has to be while the consumer is standing in the aisle.

This is because not all wine drinkers get up early enough to watch the brilliant Saturday Kitchen to pick up tips, or read wine columns, or buy books – and not all supermarkets have knowledgeable off-licence staff to help.

While choosing some cheese in Waitrose in Croydon last week I was recommended to buy Blossom Hill to go with it by the cheese sales assistant. He said he’d been working for a while in the wine department before he was transferred to cheeses.

And after hearing other stats from Tim Wilson of WDR, I was tempted to ask my cheeseman if he was being paid commission by Blossom Hill.

“We find that consumers first select a wine by colour, then special price promotions. But just 6% choose a wine by grape variety and a staggering 3% choose brands.”

So, if brands are even struggling to strike a chord with consumers and gain their lifetime loyalty – what else is there to make wine easy for the consumer?

It struck Tim and I that QR Codes could be the perfect opportunity to promote your wine through shelf-talkers and on the wine label. A simple code, which looks like a barcode, could be just the solution that works. They’ve been around for 15 years and other industries are using QR Codes to great effect – so why not wine?

Supermarkets set to trial QR Codes

WDR will be revealing new stats on the estimated number of wine drinkers with Smart phones – the mobile platform they’ll need to scan your QR Code in.

Once they scan your unique code with their phone they get taken to your website. And while standing in the wine aisle they can then browse through information and pictures about your wine, winemaker and vineyard region to help them get to know your wine better.

There’s 14% more chance of buying a product after reading about it in a blog (*source: StoryWorldwide.com) and probably a much greater percentage chance of them picking your wine off the shelf if your QR code has helped them make the decision.

Why is demystifying wine so mystifying?

Supermarkets will undoubtedly trial QR Codes one day – the question is at what cost to the wine importer? Hopefully less than a costly price promotion.

The success rate of QR Code is measurable, too – you’ll need your web team to track hits by linking the landing page on your website to your QR Code. This helps you trace where your website visitors come from.

High-profile users

McDonald’s in Japan use QR Codes on the side of burger boxes to provide nutrition information to consumers. Harrods in London used it for a recent ad campaign and Umbro used it inside an England shirt to promote a secret mobile website.

So why aren’t more wine producers and supermarket BWS teams using QR Codes to help consumers – and to finally demystify wine? I set my own unique QR Code up for free last week and it’s definitely worth a try.

One of the reasons former Virgin Wines MD Rowan Gormley tells me he founded the online wine retailer was to help consumers make their decision quicker. He said: “For some people it’s easier to choose a £30,000 car than it is to choose a £5 bottle from a wall of supermarket wines”.

Gormley said this seven years ago so why are consumers still standing in the wine aisles and having the same problem about choosing a wine?

Wine psychology

Quelle difference?

A RECENT blind test at the Edinburgh Science Festival found that most people can’t tell the difference between a £3.49 bottle of Claret to one costing 10 times more.

The survey, carried out by psychologist Richard Wiseman, found that overall there’s a 50:50 chance of identifying a wine as expensive or cheap based on taste alone – the same odds as flipping a coin.

“People just could not tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine,” said Wiseman. “When you know the answer, you fool yourself into thinking you would be able to tell the difference, but most people simply can’t.”

People scored best when deciding between two bottles of Pinot Grigio, with 59% correctly deciding which was which. The Claret, which cost either £3.49 or £15.99, fooled most people with only 39% correctly identifying which they had tasted.