I come from Rheinland-Pfalz. That is not just a long and complicated name for Germany’s sixth-largest state, it is also a door to the infinite world of wine. Some 10,000 winemakers produce 65% of all German wine in my home state — and that’s about as much as I know about wine.
What I do know is good marketing when I see it, and I can tell you that out of these 10,000 winemakers, one has completely, unequivocally dominated grocery store aisles for the past few years. Their name is Emil Bauer & Sons, and what they’ve done is as genius as only the simplest ideas can be.
Before I tell you their marketing trick (and it really is just marketing on top of an already good product), you must know: selling wine in a German grocery store, particularly in Rheinland-Pfalz, is not an easy ball game. In most shops, the wine section looks like this:
It’s not like your sauvignon blanc will be one of three white wines on display. No sir. You are going up against an armada of fermented grape juice from all over the world. Italy, France, Spain — New Zealand, for Pete’s sake! Your stuff better be good.
The Bauer family can easily check that box because they’ve been making wine for five generations. Since the 1800s, probably. Right now, two brothers, Alex and Martin, run the family business, and they’ve been racking up awards for the better part of a decade. Winery of the Month here, Newcomer of the Year there, a Gault Millau recommendation, accolades are not amiss.
White wines are the Bauers’ specialty, Rieslings and Burgundys in particular, but they also make reds, like Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. The best thing they do, however, has nothing to do with their product at all — but it makes all the difference once their bottles hit the shelves: instead of fancy labels with curly fonts and the family emblem, the Bauers write jokes on their bottles.
Here’s your typical label on a wine bottle:
How does that make you feel? Chances are, it makes you feel nothing because that’s exactly the kind of label you’d expect on any Tom-Dick-or-Sally’s wine. Location. Grape type. Fancy symbol. Meh.
Here are some of the Bauers’ wines and their labels:
The first thing you’ll notice (tap on the image to zoom in) is that the Bauers have sacrificed everything that common sense tells you belongs on a wine label — except the grape type. No decorum. No logo. No white space.
The Bauers have done this so that they may do the one thing that matters in marketing: tell you a story. Yes, it’s a short story, and its only goal is to make you laugh, but if they pull it off, you will feel something, and, trust me on this, you will buy their wine.
The first label says “Sex, Drugs, & Rock ’n Roll” — except it’s all crossed out, and below it reads: “Just Riesling for me, please!” Mind. Blown.
First, they hook you with a phrase you already know. Second, the two biggest words in that phrase are “drugs” and “sex.” Third, they visually cancel that phrase, which, how much more curious can they make us? Finally, they give us the punchline, which brilliantly presents their wine as “the solution” and a funny end to the joke. To top it all off, they write the grape type in all caps, change the color, and underline it so you can identify the product from far away. Genius.
Every single one of their labels is a variation of these patterns. Some are more straightforward, others are more visual, but they all make you smirk, smile, or literally laugh out loud. I don’t know about you, but anyone who can make me laugh while grocery shopping, which is just about the most boring task on the planet, already has a special place in my heart, regardless of what they’ll sell.
“You can’t buy happiness, but you can drink my Pinot Blanc!” “My Merlot is not the answer. It just makes you forget the question.” None of this has anything to do with the quality of the wine, but if they catch you with their jokes, no further product info is needed. Your usual wine quality radar goes out the shopping cart, and in goes Bauer & Sons’ wine.
Even in Rheinland-Pfalz, most people aren’t wine experts. They like white or red, not eight-year Nebbiolo or half-barrel, half-bottle aged. They know rough differences between a few grape types, and that’s it.
If you’re that guy or girl — which, I know I am — which bottle of wine are you gonna buy? The 17th from the left with the logo that looks exactly like the other 16, none of which you can tell any difference between, or the one that made you snort and drop your keys? Joy is a powerful emotion, and humor is one of the best ways to evoke it.
No matter how often I go to the store, I always end up browsing Bauers’ bottles. Do they have any new jokes? Is there one I can point out to my girlfriend and take credit for? These little things matter. In fact, they’re the only thing that does.
Even in something as seemingly trite as printing stickers to put on your wine bottles, there is room for genuine creativity. Whatever room you have for your products and services, make sure you don’t waste it.