Forensic Identity

“A good wine label provokes a question,” says Madeleine Corson, who specializes in raising those questions as a wine-label designer. Madeleine conducts what she calls a “forensic” search for ideas, digging into the lives of the winemakers and their wineries.

A similar approach is followed by others, such as Mollydooker, an Australian producer, whose labels express “the personality of its owners in extravagantly colored cartoons depicting boxers, dancers, violinists and carnival acts.”

The violinist is Mollydooker’s winemaker, Sarah Marquis, “who once tried to play the violin.” The dancer is her husband, Sparky. The name itself — Mollydooker — is Aussie slang for left-handed, as are both Sarah and Sparky.

Australian wines do frequently have lively labels; the Australian section of the typical wine shop tends to be “brighter than any other part of the store.” Sometimes, however, the labels are just plain cryptic.

For example, the Capture Sauvignon Blanc label is fairly basic except for a pair of gold squiggles. It turns out that these squiggles represent “California gold miners, the vineyard’s Pine Mountain location and the winery’s three married couples.”

The question is, do these labels influence purchasing decisions? Joe Salamone of Crush Wine estimates “that most people spend less than 45 seconds looking at labels.”

Maybe more important, can labels drive repeat purchases or word-of-mouth? Probably not, because as Sparky Marquis observes, “when the bottle is poured, it’s not about the label anymore.”

[Source: The Wall Street Journal, Lettie Teague, 5/7/11

Ralph’s Garage

He doesn’t readily admit it, but Ralph Lauren’s 60-car collection is part of his brand identity. However, when 17 of those cars went on exhibit at the Louvre, Ralph had no problem expressing his feelings about them: “Cars are an emotional love for me; I buy cars because they are romantic and beautiful,” he says.

Not coincidentally, the Louvre exhibit catalog was available for purchase at Ralph Lauren boutiques, and some of his cars have been featured in ads for his clothes, along with Ralph himself.

Ralph insists, however, that he didn’t buy that Bugatti because he thought it would look great in his ads. Rather, he says he uses his cars in his ads because, “they’re part of the world I’m designing.” That world, obviously, resides “along the axis of otherworldly, mega-wealth aspiration.”

When pressed, Ralph does acknowledge that his cars, and the Louvre event, do have something to do with his brand strategy. “I think this exhibit is great for the car industry, and it’s great for me,” he says. “And if people who don’t know much about Ralph Lauren come to see the cars, they might say, ‘The cars are great. Let’s go look at his clothes.’”

[Source: The Wall Street Journal, Dan Neil, 5/7/11]

Revolutionary Brands

When Vaclav Havel declared a “Velvet Revolution,” he changed the way revolutionaries brand their revolutions. Vaclav wasn’t necessarily a Lou Reed — or Elvis — fan. He was capturing the “velvety smooth collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1989.”

Before his inspiration, it was fine to name revolutions based on simple geography, like American, French or Russian. But post-Vaclav, “modern marketing seems to demand something catchier.”

Flowers are a popular symbol, beginning with the Portuguese, who “in 1974 overthrew an authoritarian regime with the carnation.” Jasmine has proved to be the most popular, having branded uprisings in Tunisia, Pakistan and China.

Georgian protesters “carried roses to protest fraudulent elections in 2003.” Tulips did the trick in Kyrgyzstan, chosen because tulips “are thought to have originated in Kyrgyzstan, before they found their way to the Netherlands via Turkey.”

The Ukraine had its Orange Revolution, which replaced the Chestnut — a reference to the chestnut trees that bloom in the spring in Kiev. That metaphor never totally took root, and orange prevailed, “its happy brightness a sharp contrast to bleak Ukrainian reality.”

[Source: The Wall Street Journal, Matthew Kaminski, 3/2/11]