Jun 22, 2006
What keeps you up at night? What keeps you excited after you wake in the morning and realize another day is yours? What is it about your work that makes you proud and motivates you? I was asking myself these questions the other day while conversing with a Zinfandel. In the end, my answer was not money, not prestige, not security. What keeps me proud and motivated about the work I do is my associations. Wark Communications has right now…
Jun 14, 2006
The wine PR business has really changed. It is much harder to garner good press for your wine today than it was 15 years ago for one simple reason: There are a whole lot more excellent wines on the market and just as many new, compelling stories that need to be told. A good wine marketer or publicist better know what they are doing. This is the first in a series of looks inside the wine PR business. Or, better…
May 23, 2006
Marketers, like myself, get a lot of the blame for taking the authenticity out of wine and lowering the beverage to just one more product to be foisted upon the public with exaggerated claims and pretty pictures. There’s a lot of truth to that kind of accusation. However, the winemakers and grape growers in Mendocino have rightly determined that more marketing is just what the doctor ordered. The growers and winemakers of Mendocino County, located about 70 miles north of…
Mar 27, 2006
Saturday was an interesting and educational day for me. I was reminded that most people think that a wine publicist’s job is to track the every day movements of the Wine Spectator and Robert Parker. Saturday I lectured at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa at their "Business of Wine" course. The class is headed up by Judd Wallenbrock of Humanitas Winery who has probably worked in every facet of the wine business. My task was to explain just…
Mar 18, 2006
GOOD MARKETING QUESTIONS… 1. “Are you aware of any freelance wine PR people in this neck of the woods? 2. (From a freelance writer): “I want to make some changes to make my Web site, making it a little friendlier and to perhaps induce more people to subscribe, offering a few more members-only services. Memberships are very low and I’m not making a cent on the site. I may eventually have to go to advertising…….What to do.?” 3. How do…