‘Tis the season for Brand & Packaging Foie Gras, and over the Christmas break I got a chance to sit down in my rocking chair and contemplate the year gone. As well as drinking some mighty fine spirits by the fire in my knitwear, I also got to admire some great (and some not so great) branded packaging. By Jon Clark, Global Creative Director, Boldinc Brand Innovation So like the Grinch of branding, I’…

We seem to be in the midst of a very unusual phenomenon – whilst volume in some categories of the drinks business is showing either very modest growth or in some even decline, we seem to be selling more higher-priced items.  By Mal Higgs, Project Manager for the ALSA  Retail Insights Project. Retailers across the country are reporting increasing average item sales. This is a very positive development, as …

By Drew Lambert It’s the biggest indicator yet that Neil Perry’s QANTAS team of sommeliers mean business; QANTAS revealed exclusively to The Wine Wankers last week that 40% of the 270 wines chosen for the airline’s new wine list have never flown in First or Business class before. Oenophile fliers – those who choose their airlines according to the wines being served – will no doubt be salivating at the n…

From Mal Higgs, Project Manager – ALSA Retail Insights. Many retailers have worked out that they can make a great deal more profit margin selling private label products – especially wine. It is not uncommon to hear stories of a four or five percent increase in gross profit margin across the entire wine category just by selling four or five dozen private label wines in a week. Of course, there is a double …

Column By George Rochios from LBW & Partners – Chartered Accountants & Business Advisers When the goods and services tax was introduced to the Australian tax landscape in 2000, there was a lot of angst about the negative effect on the cost of living that this blanket 10 per cent impost would have. A glimmer of consolation was that pulling a cork out of a wine bottle might hopefully be a lot cheape…

By Nancy Truscott, Director of Grocery & Liquor Programs at Shopper Tracker Australia Shopper seems to be the new ‘it’ word as companies start to recognise the importance of understanding the person who is making the decision on whether to buy or not. Investment in shopper marketing has more than doubled in most companies in the last five years. Suppliers are seeing the benefits of this investment th…

Bill Bruno, CEO of Ebiquity’s multi-channel analytics consultancy Stratigent, sets out some straightforward rules of thumb for building an attribution framework to track the consumer path to purchase across multiple devices. There are two main challenges advertisers currently face – transparency and the fact that we now live in a multi-device world. Customers interact with brands on mobile devices, comput…

Much has been written about the main white varieties and, to a lesser extent, about the better known alternative whites like verdelho, marsanne and fiano. But there is also a plethora of lesser-known varieties. Meet the kids. Most of the billions of litres of wine in existence in the world were made from a handful of grape varieties – about 30 to 50 at most – out of the 1,368 varieties identified by Janci…