Art may be served by this, but marketing in the form of consumer engagement is the clear intent. The 19 Crimes figures tell their stories, humanizing their identities, and then step back onto the label. That seems like a pretty petty crime to get my sad guy shipped to Australia, but it might be just the thing to start someone more into it to buy bottles and pull corks relentlessly until all 19 crime corks are captured.ġ9 Crimes is a story wine designed to appeal to a particular consumer category and Treasury has taken the next logical step by creating a virtual reality app that animates the sad men (and the sad woman on the Chardonnay label), so that they can tell their own sad stories.īringing the inanimate to life is a feat with a long artistic tradition - think Pygmalion, Pinocchio, or - especially relevant in this context - the scene in Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera “Ruddygore” where painted figures step out of their frames to deliver a stern warning. You see each cork is printed with one of the 19 crimes - my cork is #11: stealing roots, trees or plants or destroying them. But there are many reasons why cork is so popular today and 19 Crimes cleverly adds a new advantage to the list: collectibility! The cork? Well, that breaks another stereotype, of course, since we sometimes think of Australia and New Zealand wines being topped by screwcaps. But you will have to purchase and open the bottle to see my favorite part of the branding system - the cork! No surprise there!Įvery bit of the package is carefully linked to the brand identity and I’d encourage you to take a close look the next time you buy wine. A friend who seems to have some inside information told me that the 19 Crimes flavor profile is no accident but rather the result of lots of careful research and consumer testing. Some of the most popular brands on the market today totally succeed with tannic sweet red blends pitched at a particular market segment. Not to my taste, but I am not the target audience.
Sweet and tannic, that was my reaction, and better chilled sangria-style than straight up. I bought a bottle of the red blend and, after I stared at the sad man for a while, I tasted it. Outlaw wine for self-styled renegades? Now you are beginning to see the 19 Crimes logic. Outlaws, if you know what I mean, who identify with others who defy convention. Well, the answer is that 19 Crimes seems to have been rather precisely engineered to appeal to an important demographic - millennial men, especially those who see themselves as a bit of a rogue. Who wants to buy a sad man wine? Who wants to associate themselves with a loser? How in the world can a wine like this get on the shelf, much less sell more than a million cases? Who wants to buy a criminal wine?Īnd, each label, of the core brand features a photo of a sad man - the mug shot of a convicted criminal. Any of 19 crimes could get you sentenced to transportation to Australia - banished to the end of the earth. Great Britain once expelled its most hardened criminals to Australia. 19 Crimes - outlaw wine! The name comes Australian history (history wine - oh no!). Sales of Shiraz have been sinking right along with Australian wine in general - a double curse!Īnd then there is the branding. American consumers drink plenty of Syrah and Shiraz in red blends, but they don’t seem to want to buy it as a varietal wine. The Australian section of my local upscale supermarket’s wine wall has shrunk to a shadow of its former self.Īlthough 19 Crimes has evolved into a lineup of 7 different wines, including Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, the core grape variety is Shiraz, and that’s the second problem. Sales of Aussie wines have been in decline here in the U.S. What’s going on?ġ9 Crimes is an Australian wine brand, which is the first problem. It is everything that shouldn’t sell in the U.S. It breaks all the “conventional wisdom” rules. 19 Crimes, the popular brand from Treasury Wine Estates, does everything wrong.
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