Bringing More People Into Wine w/ Jacki Strum, Wine Enthusiast Media

With ~2M monthly sessions on their newly unified commerce and media website, Wine Enthusiast continues to be a beacon for the wine industry. Jacki Strum, President of Wine Enthusiast Media, details their new wine review platform and global wine travel directory, democratizing access to wine and wine experiences globally. These initiatives help bring more people into the world of wine, including the younger generations, a critical part of building a vibrant wine industry.   Detailed Show Notes:  Covid altered the business model, led to re-structured organization and unified media and commerce divisions on wineenthusiast.com 2022 - WE paused reviews for emerging wine regions to recalibrate systems Existing tasting process1 of 2 publications that review every wine blind (high cost), taste in flights w/in region and price bracketsNeed to store, archive, organize wines, set up tastings (in paper bags with numbers), and hire reviewers50% of reviews are done at HQ (imported wines), and West Coast wines are done locallyThe manual process of filling out a pdf and putting that into the box with wines, manually inputted into J Guide (legacy system, 20 years old), then stored and organized for tasting New tasting platform (Sept 2024) - anyone can submit a wine for review and all will be reviewedNew digital platform - bar code scanners, printed tabs, can track shipments and deliveries, a more fluid databaseReduces large volume of questions from people submitting wine (can track digitally)It has the same # of reviewers, but a more flexible infrastructure can allow for more wines to be tasted$65/SKU processing fee - all reviewers charge in some way (e.g., require subscription, membership, or advertisement)6-month processing time (same as before) - hope to reduce this over time, based on the schedule of reviewersPrinted reviews selected by the tasting dept, all scores published online for free Tasting platform benefits for new and small wineries Opens up reviews to all regions across the globeThe US market is still heavily score-driven for distribution (some major retailers, e.g., Costco, Kroger, Albertsons, require scores from major publications)Helps with tasting room and local distribution sales Media trendsPrint is still doing well (e.g., books outsold movie tickets last year), and magazine subscriptions are increasing (free tote bags help)Advertising up slightly Digital media is growing, with a targeted advertising focusEvents - biggest growth area - launched Sip of South America, Sip of Italy, and biggest event is Wine Star Awards (25th Anniversary in SF this year)TikTok now allows alcohol advertising, getting Gen Z engaged with wine knowledge New travel division for WETasting room directory, partnered w/ Tock - 1st agnostic travel global wine travel guideLeverages Tock’s wineries as launching list (~1,200 wineries, CA focused), building out globally with WE relationships (~100 wineries reached out in 1st month to be included)The 2nd most trafficked page on the site WE revenue mixCovid - led to explosive commerce growthToday - back to 2019 levels, ~80% commerce / ~20% media Getting Gen Z engaged with winePrint enables content absorption without ad bombardment (e.g., book reading bars in NYC)Need to change content for each channel to target audience (e.g., Google as people’s “secret diary,” article on how to hold a wine glass became a top 5 article)Influencers, infographics, video - bring in new consumers (e.g., wine & potato chip parking article led to major influencer doing every pairing on TikTok) Get access to library episodes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.