Planning is Key in Wine PR and Baby Making

Successful wine public and media relations almost always revolves around a well thought out plan. The messaging is understood and can be easily articulated. The avenues and channels through which the brand message will be funneled is laid out. Each messaging channel demands a somewhat different story telling device. Planning is essential. Planning is good. Planning leads to success.

It’s not unlike unleashing a new human on the world. You need a plan. My beautiful wife Kathy and I have been in the planning stages of bringing a new human into the world for quite some time. Our Little Project was extraordinarily well planned out from how we would conceive him, where we would incubate him, how we would care for him while he got ready for unveiling and we even gave Our Little Project a name: Henry George.

Our plan has not been altogether unlike a project I once worked on for a client in which the goal was to unleash onto the wine world the most expensive American wine to-date. That project, undertaken in the 1990s, involved carefully planning what the wine would be, what its name would be, where it would be unveiled and, finally, when it would be released. This last element of our plan for the wine changed. We went back and forth before it was finally determined when it would be best to release the wine.

Interestingly, Kathy and I have not had complete control over when we would release Henry George into the world. It turns out that while we have had a good idea about when this would happen, in the end, it would be up to Our Little Project, and not us.

But it turns out, we discover, that the difference between releasing a new wine into the world and releasing a baby into the world isn’t really all that different. It turns out that modern medicine actually can allow us to choose the date when we will release Henry George into the world.

Henry George Wark will be released on May 21…probably in the morning.

The Most Expensive American Wine Project worked out perfectly. The planning paid off. The entire production sold out to wholesalers within a week and the winery’s mailing list customers took the rest just as quickly.

We have no reason believe that the release Henry George will be any less successful. It’s just that the boy is getting a bit too comfortable where he is and doesn’t seem to want to do the work to prepare for his release. So, our project coordinators in the white coasts tells us that we can just go ahead and decide when Henry will be released. So, we put a new plan together that will will execute on May 21. I’m tellnig you, it’s all about the planning.

 

 


6 Responses

  1. Bob Henry - May 11, 2014

    . . . and was the unnamed wine able to sustain its debut vintage price as a “sophomore” release?

  2. Tom Wark - May 12, 2014

    Bob…Last I looked, yes. But admittedly, I haven’t looked in a very long time.

  3. Doug Levin - May 12, 2014

    Have a couple of kids in their 20’s now. All I have to say is: Good Luck! Your planning will end as soon as the baby is born. Kids have a way of finding their own path, no matter what you do… And that is a good thing!

  4. Elsbeth Sarao - May 12, 2014

    Lovely post. All the best to you & Kathy!

  5. Casey - May 21, 2014

    Now you know what really takes planning? . . . trying to work in Wine PR and have a baby at the same time. The good news is that Ginger Ale in a wine glass mostly looks like Chardonnay, and if you spit the prosecco back into your water glass, no one will notice. Good luck on Henry George’s debut today!!!


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