Fat Bastards and Sassy B*tches

In an increasingly competitive wine market, brands must find ways to differentiate their products as each year, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau approves over 100,000 applications for new wine labels and brands. While some wineries differentiate through label design or packaging, others have opted to differentiate through brand names. This is understandable as the label is the easiest way to make a wine bottle stand out visually from the pack. Most brand names and labels are traditional using a family name or strong imagery to conjure up visions of a refined wine brand. Others more recently have taken a rather atypical and in some cases, less genteel approach to branding. Whether it’s the Royal Bitch Cabernet Sauvignon from the Hudson Valley or the BallBuster Shiraz from Australia’s Barossa Valley, various wine labels are finding new ways to grab consumer attention.

As we saw with Terry Wheatley on Friday, it is an effective and creative way to develop customer affinity for a brand as new wine consumers are often drawn to the elaborate story behind a wine or its characters. One of the more remarkable instances of effective “risqué branding” is none other than FAT Bastard wine, a collection of French blends produced and distributed through a British and French partnership and brought to the US through Virginia importer Winebow, Inc. FAT bastard has become a fast-growing brand as it sold over 400,000 cases last year in the United States alone. BusinessWeek has referred to the brand as a "marketing phenomenon". John Umbach of Joseph Victori Wines, the distributor of the Royal Bitch Wine brand explains, “The thing is, if you come out with a conservative label it becomes hard to separate yourself from the herd on the shelf. The competition is just brutal”. This competition faced by wine brands becomes particularly intense at the lower end of the market where winemakers are clamoring for a more relatable or lighthearted aesthetic for new wine drinkers. I found it very interesting that an industry rooted in best wine practices has found a niche market for fun and unpretentious brands.

However, while this has worked for the Middle Sister and FAT Bastard wine brands, the same often cannot be said for other wine brands with clever or snarky titles. A number of brands have entered the market, only to find that, as gimmicky/novelty products, their success is short-lived and consumer interest quickly fades. As such, companies with risqué titles and brands must find the optimal balance between quality and pricing in order to ensure that consumers consider the wine as worth of a repeat purchase rather than a one-time gag gift. Shoppers may chuckle at the UK’s “The Dog’s Bollocks” red wine blend or glance twice at New Zealand’s “Cat Pee on a Gooseberry Bush” Sauvignon Blanc, but I imagine that these are not the wines that people share with friends or relax with at the end of a long day. In other words, what happens to these brands when the novelty wears off? In a market where even the most conservatively named brands can fizzle, there is a fine line between branding that compels people to purchase and branding that is either dismissed as a novelty or is outright off-putting. I’m curious the class’ thoughts on the overall perception of distinctive and unique wine brands with unordinary titles. Passing fad or growing niche?

Bonus: below is a page dedicated to the various cheeky wine brands currently in the market. The names range from comical to downright bizarre.

http://www.oddee.com/item_96809.aspx

(Pardon the title)