The Dog and Pony Show
You’ve made the wines and put them in a bottle. The easy part is over. Now you have to convince someone to buy the stuff. This is called The Dog and Pony Show. Back in the days of Jesse James the Wild West, was… well, it was wild. But it was also poor and desperate – a lot like today’s wine industry.
The odd traveling showman would saunter into an outpost town and make his little dog do tricks like jumping through a hoop and walking on its back legs. And invariably he would have a pony for the kids to ride around the small fairground. This was simply a cheap circus.
Sales and marketing in this industry often looks like a cheap circus, which is why we call it The Dog and Pony Show. Sure you have the odd big top tent companies with caravans of curious wines to ogle and exotic varieties to sample, but most of us haven’t got the resources to stage such impressive spectacles. We’ve got a rucksack of tank samples and leg cramps from a long-haul cattle-class airline seat.
Last week I was at The London Wine Trade Fair. Thousands of wine produces from around the world packed full the huge hall at Excel, peddling their wares. The show isn’t open to the public. You pay a wad of money to exhibit to a handful of wine writers and buyers, which seems quite strange to me.
The big top tent companies spend a further fortune building mini fortresses, with upper decks, plasma screens, flags and coffee bars. There’s a lot of backslapping and the parties are legendary, but how much new business gets done is debatable.
With supermarkets wielding ever-increasing purchasing power, there are really only about a dozen people you need to know in the UK if you want to sell wine in the retail section. And as one can imagine they are being hounded to distraction by everyone.
More South African producers are looking to move into the restaurant side of the business as a result. So next time you are in a restaurant, try the South African wine and if it’s good, email the producer. They need all the encouragement they can get in this sector of the market.
