A few weeks ago we were asked by Napa Valley Vintners, the trade organization for Napa’s leading wineries (270 plus to be clear), to assist them with a brand positioning and creative concept project. Needless to say, we were very pleased to able to assist the world’s leading wine region to maintain its leadership position.

While working on this program, I met Michael Honig of Honig Vinyard and Winery one of Napa Valley’s most successful Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc makers. Michael has a unique vision and a human rather than overly corporate approach to the marketing of his wines. I thought that Michael’s thoughts on the business of wine and wine marketing would make for an entertaining show. Here is part one of a two part interview. By the way, since personal recommendation is a major influencer of wines purchases, I highly recommend Honig’s Rutherford Sauvignon Blanc.

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcast [19:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I have been pitching advertising accounts since my first days in the advertising business. I have managed the agency new business process, managed individual pitches and now, as an agency owner, take this process even more seriously than ever before.

Advertising Age has put up videos of agency creative directors bitching about what clients expect in pitches and many agencies provide (free ideas), the pitch ordeal itself and agency compensation (what if it only takes fours hours at $300 an hour to arrive at a multimillion dollar concept.)

Here is our take. Ralston360 pitches only business we think we can win. We beg out of lengthy data-digging RFP requests that appear to be run by people simply justifying their jobs. When we pitch we do it right and really push the strategic thinking angle not the “hey we make pretty cool pictures” pitch (last year we beat out four very sharp creative oriented national shops for the Legalzoom.com account.) We never do spec creative. To prove how we can think through a prospect’s objectives, we might do a couple of mini-ideas like this one for the LegalZoom pitch. This is what LegalZoom’s high quality online legal services could do to the world of lawyers with a bit of guerrilla marketing.

The bottom line (this is a long list)… This is a tough business that has been made tougher by mega agency holding companies beholden to Wall Street, the loss of the 15% commission in the 1990’s killed the golden goose, there is never a lack of agencies willing to give away ideas (their only asset), many agencies are frankly cookie-cutter, many clients have no clue how to do an agency review, many clients don’t really know what they are looking for, many clients do not know how to work with agencies and don’t seem to have much respect for their agency partners, pitches are occasionally run by bean counters, many lengthy pitches result in accounts that offer significantly lower agency compensation than the client originally offered.

The real bottom line? This business still beats out most for delivering a positive fun to compensation ratio. I certainly wouldn’t give this up to be one of the Marketing Directors that only last 23 months.

I have been getting some good feedback email lately. The following points out that I haven’t done a Podcast for a few weeks. Well, call it a combo of Summertime Blues and ‘other things on my mind.’

“Mr. Levitan!

I’m compelled to write after updating my podcasts week after week and
not seeing anything from you since 8/18! Perhaps 360View
subscriptions are one measure of success, but surely the number of
those who miss your informative interviews/thoughts/broadcasts when
they are not there is an even better measure.

Seriously, I am a fan. Perhaps not rabid but a fan nontheless and I
do look forward to your continued musings. Please don’t drop the
effort. There are those who really appreciate it.

Best, EB”

So, in the hope that there are others that care… I will soon be putting up interviews on wine marketing with Michael Honig of Honig Wines and Terry Gallo of EruroRSCG on pharmaceutical marketing (you know, the legal drug marketing world.)

Sorry for the inactivity. I’ll start to take my Adderall CII again.

He, 17 years old says, “Hey, I just marked 6 tee shirts to buy on this new site.” She, mom says, “Are you kidding me, I bought two shirts for you on Threadless last year.”

Web 2.0 meets fashion meets social marketing meets designer community meets personal expression. That’s the elevator pitch for Threadless. Their words:

“Threadless was created to give designers and artists an opportunity to unleash a little creativity and display it to the masses. Anyone can visit the site, download our templates and submit a design. Then, the designs are voted on. The winning designers receive $1,000 in cash and prizes, huge amounts of notoriety and their design printed and sold on a tee.”

With tee shirts as ultimate fashion statement (just watch one episode of Entourage), it is easy to see that a mass clearing house for tees has to work. So much more interesting plus a business model. Hey VC’s, please, no more MySpace rip-offs.

Marktd is a site where users rate marketing articles. They did good by us when we launched Podcasting360 so not only do I like them for their generally good list, they did good by us.

Here is their spiel:

“Marktd is a reference system that highlights marketing articles considered valuable by the marketing community. Marketers submit articles they either write or just find on the web and other marketers vote on the value of those articles. The most popular articles reach the front page.”

Marktd is a product of PFSK, a – hmmm, I’m not sure. A Trends publisher I think. Much more on them and their other sites right here. Botom line. They make me a bit smarter when I visit their sites. My favorite is IF.