Ep. 796 Laurie Millotte | Get US Market Ready With Italian Wine People

This episode is brought to you by the Italy International Academy, the toughest Italian wine program. One thousand candidates have produced two hundred and sixty two Italian wine ambassadors to date. Next course is in Hong Kong, Russia, New York Mark and Verona. Think you make the cut. Apply now at b niti international dot com. Thanks for tuning into my new show. Get US Market Ready with Italian wine people. I'm Steve Ray, author of the book how to get US Market Red And in my previous podcast, I shared some of the lessons I've learned from thirty years in the wine and spirits business helping brands enter and grow in the US market. This series will be dedicated to the personalities who have been working in the Italian wine sector in the US, their experiences challenges, and personal stories. I'll uncover the roads that they walked shedding light on current trends, business strategies, and their unique brands. So thanks for listening in, and let's get to the interview. Hi, and welcome to this week's edition of Get US Market Ready with Italian wine people. This week, I'm pleased to have as my guest, Laurie Miat, who is, the founder and, president of Outchinery. Laurie, Welcome to the show. Hi, Steve. Please to be here. So, we first met spoke. I don't think we met in person, but somehow we got connected about five years ago. And you had just started this thing. And I remember when you were telling me about it, I thought which which often happens to me when I hear about something for the first time. That's not gonna work. It wasn't just you personally, but you're just but but here we are in a new world order, so to speak, where visuals and label recognition and things like that are commonplace or a common place. You were kinda way ahead of the curve. I was wrong. You were right. Tell me about where Outchinery came from. Actually, first start. Tell me a little bit about yourself. And how you came to this. And then we can talk about our trainer. So I'm from France originally, hence, the accent, burgundy to be precise. So I was born in the world of wine, and a steady graphic design in France and moved to Canada soon after I graduated and started designing wine labels, which honestly was a dream come true, like you get to design for wine and get a lot of free wine in the process. So I developed brand, for the Ocanogan here in British Columbia, I'm calling from Vancouver, BC. But also, you know, and, but because of the internet, you know, I would design also wine brands for Chile for the US and so on. Like, it didn't matter. One thing I noticed, throughout my career was the difficulty to get quality bottle imagery. So, bottle shots, lifestyle images. And at the beginning, it was really a full disclosure more of a personal problem as in I spent so much time, you know, sweat and tears to develop what I'd like to think, like, excellent packaging, but then it all felt flat when it came to the representation. May it be like in ads, on website or for my portfolio. Fast forward though, like the world of wine and how to sell wine has evolved quite a bit and even more so in the last two years where of course like DTC is like ramping up and, you know, more and more like e premises and such as like driesly and all the retailers. And so it wasn't just me having issues with quality battle shots. It was also all my clients. I'm a I'm a doer at heart. I hate complaining. So one day, when I saw it's a true story. When I went to see Jurassic World, at the movies, I just left the theater and thought, oh, come on. We can do dinosaur. Like Terex that use CGI computer generated imagery that look pretty damn realistic. Surely, we can apply the technology to the world of wine to make it a cost efficient and control quality. And that's how our journey was born. So it was just out of my own frustration. Started with my own clients, design clients that were really feeling the pain of that, lack of imagery. And then fast forward, you know, five years, apparently, it wasn't such crazy idea, like, maybe you had thought at the beginning like you mentioned. And we work now with over two thousand five hundred brands for from all over the world, from Australia to South Africa, of course, quite a bit in the States as well. Yeah. We're just and we're just getting started. Very excited. Yeah. The, the whole issue of my issue is I did not have my eyes open. It didn't realize how important this was going to be, but I it it comes it's endemic. I I see it every day. When you look up a wine online, especially on your cell phone, and it's it's not formatted to fit the cell phone when it's stretched or it's poor quality or it's unreadable. Mhmm. Or it's missing or it's if somebody put a flat square label on a round bottle and didn't photoshop it in and it looked horrible, unnatural, I guess, is the way to think about it. The the interesting thing you told me, which I think is well, interesting. You don't need the bottles to to photograph and explain how that works. Right. Sometimes we forget about that detail. So unlike traditional photography, we don't need physical samples. We only need, the label files, what you sent to print. And if you have a special capsule like a special stealth in, let's say we also need that fine. Again, nothing more than what you supplied your, you know, your printer with, and then we have a very detailed yet very easy like questionnaires such as the color of your glass, exactly what is mold that you're using. It's not an approximation. Like, we have last time I checked, like, over one hundred and fifty different wine bottle shapes, you know, to make sure it's exactly the right slot of the shoulder, the right pant, all of that. So you answer this, upload your label artwork, and then within three business days, we submit to you, online proof, like photo proof to review. So we want to make sure that you're exactly happy with how everything is represented. Which typically, again, you do not have with a traditional photographer. And usually, by the time we send you the proof, it would have been just a time that maybe the photographer would have received the physical sample at his door, and let alone and started to photograph it. So Then we make sure you're super happy. If you have some revisions, we make sure to apply them and submit again for you for review. And we do so until you are perfectly happy. Usually, it's, you know, it happens all very fast. And then you receive final files like high res, TIF format, which is great for printing, like magazine and so on. And then P and T and G pegs. And if you do communicate, with us like your e commerce platform, may it be why indirect commerce seven trolley, we also make sure to prep, in the correct size of those assets. So you really just have to, you know, log in into your your web app and then, like, upload, the right asset, and they will display the way you want to not stretch not missing my bright crisp and, enticing. So answer this question for me. I talked to so many wineries and spare producers the same thing. And when it comes to the bottle, the the imagery. Oh, that's good enough where they may have shot at themselves with, you know, a a lens that's too wide. So the bottle looks like it's, you know, bulbous in the middle or, you know, just things are are not right. Why is okay, not okay. Okay is not okay. First impressions matter. Like, we do judge a book by its cover. I know it's it's harsh, but that's also truth as a world of wine. Well, that's the whole point about label design and, you know, it's it's it's the last meter. It's what what your eye is gonna catch. As you spend that much time on label, why don't you spend that much time on the photography? That's the real question. Absolutely. I just don't have the answer to it except people aren't, I guess, so sophisticated about that kind of promotional stuff. They don't see the importance. Yeah. Like, I think, like, just to look a bit outside, sometimes, the the world of wine, which I think sometimes we are a bit guilty of not doing enough as an industry. I love looking at this Airbnb two d, for example, which know, obviously, Airbnb is in the business of more like rentals, but they did a study in twenty twenty one saying that listing, so, like, places to stay at with professional photography, so properly lit, properly shot, you know, the right lens, properly styled, get up to twenty percent more bookings. It's exactly the same booking. Photos like the asset user, the guest, how do you call them? Photos are one of the top three, items that a guest would make that decision from. Pricing, of course, is important, and the location. So after pricing and location are checked, the quality of the photography, how enticing it is is what will make somebody choose this place over another. And we we would fool ourselves thinking that it's not the same for the world of wine, of course, like, same price point, pinot noir from relatively like, you know, Sonoma in both cases. One has a beautiful packaging that I can actually read the label that just doesn't look out of Craig's list, and the other one is just like pixel, like ugly. Which one would I choose as a customer? Like, at the potential customer? Like, it's a it's a no brainer. Yeah. I guess it is, but then then the the related issue, you used the phrase about, taking a selfie, would you share that with me again? Yeah. And and exactly. And the reality is we, wine industry know how hard it is to take a great pictures of a wine bottle. It's a joke often is like taking a selfie in the house of mirror. Right? It's a round surface. It's highly reflective. Sometimes it's transparent. I'm thinking of Rosay, sauvignon blanc, so it's genuinely even for a professional photograph tricky to get this image you know, right and enticing. So really, like, when we leverage three d technology like out January instead, we have much more control and guaranteed quality that way. It's just it's hard. It's not it's not a technology issue. It's not like the quality of your camera. In your iPhone. That's a issue. It's really to set up the environment. And maybe once in the blue when you get it right, then you have to repeat it. But again and again, because the chances are you are releasing more than one wine is pretty high. Yeah. Tim, and we'll get into the the economics of it and and the cost efficiency and the applicability of it, particularly to e commerce, but also in a whole bunch of of other things. So the concept of a high quality image is fundamental to selling the product. And for some reason, there's this disconnect between people investing the time and energy to do it. So one of the things that's changed is the way people do search. When we had our initial conversation, you were talking about that. Can can you speak more about that and the impact of some new technologies? Yeah. I think, you know, people are looking at wines from very, like, different angles or different, like, channels. It's not just like one way. Like nobody is just doing only Vivino or nobody is just doing, like, the DTC website is that particular winery. The reality is you always want your wine to be described, you know, properly to have, like, all the, you know, like, varietal and, like, origin and all of that, but also you want the associated perfect image that represent your product and in its best light, hence the name, out Chenery. And that's really important because that image would be used on your DTC website on the e premises, like I mentioned, like, maybe like retailers or like your distributor. It will also be used for all, like, your PR material and what I mean by that, you may get a write up in the local newspaper. I can tell you from experience. I need a high res picture. Yes. You two need a high res picture. And, you know, like, often write up the feature one, two, three wines, right? Like, like, and tell you what, they will always put front and forward, the one that has a high risk pictures, and we only print one because it just looks better on the newspaper. Like, humans are visual creatures. Like, it's evolution, like, without getting into the science, but I guess really like a most developed sense. So making it easy and, high quality is just like really and it's not expensive, one of the best return on investment. You've gone so far. It's so hard to produce Great wine, great label. It's just white stuff at the at the last person, if you will, of, like, that process. And then I think it's something that you spoke, about before Steve as well. You know, you don't have control on how where people get your wine bottle images and a lot of services just like what we call like scrap the web. You know, they just pick whatever and that kind of comes first in, you know, Google or whatever you wanna call it and having, like, those images that are, like, at the top, like, why our channel is a little, like, check mark in it. Like, this is a approved asset that we want our brand to be represented with, goes a long way as well. One of the big things to me is that, you know, we've seen this explosion, and adoption of label recognition technology. It's fundamental to Vivino and wine searcher, all of which have a mutual interest in showing the product in its best light, both figuratively, and literally. You brought up the the the point about, cost. And let me put things into context. You know, as an agency, we expect clients to provide us with this type of stuff. If they don't, then we have to go out and get it shot. And if we have to go out and get it shot, we have to pay a professional photographer to do it. And it it takes time and it costs a lot of money. You've put together an interesting way of charging for this stuff that allows the winery to do a port folio and then ongoing work on really, really affordable basis. To the point that that's what got me excited and why I wanted to to have you on on on the podcast, because my message to everybody is you all should be doing this. And I'm talking to importers, I'm talking to retailers, I'm talking to distributors as well as, producers. So talk a little bit about the cost and how you, price it. Yeah. So which, again, our goal is to make it as easy and convenient for wineries, producers imported distributors of all sizes. So we created our own internal currency, if you will. We call them shine credits. A little bit like the ticket that's a fair, one shine credit equals one bottle shot, and the more credits you buy, the cheaper the credit. So you have got right away volume discount and most typical way to work with us is people purchase, for example, twenty five shine credits for the year. So that means maybe they will right away, like, do six bottle shots of, like, the reds. Let's say, we're in the fall, for example. And then they already know they will want one or two images with Christmas in mind, like the holidays, and then they know they have their white wine coming in the spring that we need bottle shots with as well. And then I live there with a couple of extra shine credits to do whatever they want. So it's flexibility on, like, those assets. And at the same time, price, like, convenient price. So just to give an idea, we start at sixty five dollars per shine credit. That's kind of like a lower price. Of course, we offer enterprise pricing for bigger, volume wineries. But the idea exactly is just to make it super easy. One thing that I want to point out, so let's say you buy one bottle shot with one shine credit with us, which is sixty five dollars, we when you keep as you keep working with us, we make sure that this asset stays current with you at no extra cost. What does that mean by that? It means we take care of the vintage updates for you. So you never have this disconnect that is no longer okay. I mean, it was never okay, but even orton and a lot of people once again say, I don't wanna have to work that out. Yeah. You do. You do. You cannot be selling a twenty twenty one pinot noir with a twenty fifteen bottle shot. Like, it's just not right. So we take care of the advantage of this for you for free, so that means it's like a one time and then we maintain it until you really change fully the design. We've been going so far especially when it comes to rose wines, for example, we know that year over year the liquid color can change quite a bit, you know, so maybe like your roses this year is much more pink than it was last year. We also make sure to readjust that liquid color to be Again, a perfect representation of what you are selling, right now. So we really try to make it easy that way. Sixty five dollars for a fabulous image. And, obviously, it couldn't even be less expensive than that. One of the other, so one one of the other key things that I, urge my clients and people I talk to and people I teach is you really need to optimize the presence of your product online. And what I mean by that is not just the most current imagery and not just the highest quality imagery, but imagery in a variety of formats and, backgrounds white versus black. So that other designers who are gonna play with that to make it fit with their catalog or whatever it happens to be can do it. They're more likely to work with images that are easy to work with that they don't have to mess with. So what it ends up being is you're providing better content, you will get better visibility and better placement, certainly for the for for the price. But more than than that, the by starting with the photograph and then also making sure that each of these sites, whether it's drizzly, Vivino, pick stat wine is is one to start with now that has a beta open where you can upload all the information, latest ratings, latest, reviews, latest, food and wine pairings, all that kind of stuff. And because people scrape or scrub as you pronounce it. The content online often times what you put on one site you'll find is picked up in other sites and and in many cases, evergreen that that's the image that they're always using. So you definitely wanna put your best foot forward in optimizing your content. But take it the next step. You know, one of the biggest complaints, not complaints. I guess criticisms, I I see about how brands use their promote their products in social media because it's always bottle shots, bottle shots, bottle shots, bottle shots. And the bottles have pictures of the chateaus or the winery or the, you know, the area or something. And maybe there's really creative and colorful imagery and so forth, but that's really just one part of it. What's critically important and anyone involved in social media these days will tell you, it's putting it in a place, a a lifestyle image kind of that defines the use and allows the retailer, I'm sorry, allows the the reader or the viewer to put themselves in that situation. So you are talking about Christmas. At Christmas, yeah, you want red and green. You want people there and you want the funny hats and you want the decorations and all that kind of stuff. And on December twenty sixth, you don't. Right? So you wanna make sure that you have all that stuff that people can look at and say, gee, I can envision myself there. And and here's the reason. I tell people this all the time, look, I can't take you to this winery or that winery. I can't take you to verona. But what we can do maybe is take verona to you and put the wine into a lifestyle image. Tell us about how you handle lifestyle images and how that fits into this overall protocol of relatively affordable, fabulous, imager. Yeah. So if if your bottle shot is your ID picture, you know, the one that's, you know, on your passport, if you will, then I would really suggest that this is not the same picture that you use on your dating app, which often, you know, like, that's how it comes when you want to try to entice people to, like, buy your wine. So Yes, you've got your bottle shot. It's quite on purpose like standardized, transparent background, a white background, and it's perfectly lit, and it does a job of making it clearly identifiable what product it is and is the true representation. But like I said, it can only go so far. It gets not only to itself enticing. So what's important is to make it easy for wineries to show situation and lifestyle. So the way we do that is we work this time with act of photographers, like one with camera that work with us to create backdrop, like environment, if you will, where wine would be perfectly enjoyed. And that means it can be, like, dinner set, dinner table, or it can be at the vineyard, or we can be, you know, more Christmas settings, like you said, like, trying always to find this balance of not being stereotypical or over cheesy. So when we have some of the Christmas, for example, to have like Reuben and Pine cone. We also have, like, some options that have much more like elevated, you know, like, decors. And the idea is perfect image, and then you tell us out of the wines that you already have worked with us on the bottle shot which bottles you want in that scene. So to keep again with this analogy of hollywood, think a bit of the avenger. You have the avengers at the bottom in the city, and then CGI, you have the hulk, which is at much bigger and green. So think a bit that way. Like, you have the decor prefix settings, and then we drop in your three d bottle. The end result is an hybrid image combining special effects and traditional photography, but to the eye of the beholder, it looks like a perfect lifestyle image. So those are great for social media, but I would say not only. Social media is also great to have more of the cough. I really encourage our customers to think beyond actually social media. And we see a lot of views on, dedicated wine emails So when you want people to sign up to your wine club or nowadays wine subscription, not that we're gonna go, like, into that world, it's just like really having beyond this bottle shot, like helping people figure, like, oh, how is this wine subscription would fit into their lives? Oh, they can entertain friends around the table and always have cool wine to talk about. But again, a gifting wine present, again, like, when we mentioned, like, the holidays. So that's really, really fun. And beginning because we leverage three g technology here, it happens very fast. Once we have done your bottle shot, you tell us the image you want, we put it together. It's between next three three business days again before you can see a proof online, making sure it's all according the way you want to. And then we release the final final files for you to distribute wherever. And again, we encourage people to think beyond social media, like it's one part, but like there's actually such a life that an image can have. Again, let's say email, great to also switch up your own website. So when people, like, come back again in your website, it is not yet the same image. Like, you know, like, it's this thing. So it's just like such, such a life, or when you next time you get featured, for example, you know, like, quiz a local newspaper, like, yeah, provide them the bottle shot, and they may have not requested lifetime image, but like, oh, I also have these. And I look at this as a no brainer. I mean, it sounds like I'm selling this. I guess I kinda I am. I I am the financial interest in this people. Exactly. You're not you don't have a referral affiliate link. In getting wineries and importers to have proper image libraries that can be used is gonna bring you into the, you know, kicking and screaming into like the the two thousand and odds. Come on. This kind of quality image, and and let me differentiate the the quality level from it's not just like a background on a zoom call where you get some fluffiness on the on the shoulders. This looks like it was actually in the picture that the the proportions are right and all that kind of stuff. The lighting is consistent across all the pieces. It's it's high quality stuff. We did a recent email blast with, with the retailer and we needed some lifestyle imagery. I spent a thousand dollars on I mean, here we could have done that for a couple of hundred. Great way of saving, money, but more importantly, providing the imagery that will differentiate your product from everybody else. Look at it this way. Every winery wants to be able to to compete with the big guys even though most of the ones that we're working with are priced higher and produce less. Right? So where's the challenge? How can you do it? This is one way that you can do that by having a library of assets, and the same thing happens in spirits with, drink recipes and drink photographs and so forth. But having a library of assets that is of high enough quality that people are gonna want to use it as opposed to being forced to use it. Again, the the the name of the company we're talking with is outshinery. And this is, Laurie Miat, that's m I l l o t t e. Would you give us your email? Because if people want to say, gee, I'd like to find out more about this. How could they reach you? Absolutely. So you can find us on social media at outshinery. And, yeah, feel free to email me, like lori, l a u r I e, at Outchenry dot com. And what I would encourage as well, you know, listeners to this podcast is even to give us a try. It's free. No string attached. We don't ask for a credit card number. So if you go on our website, slash into out channery dot com slash free. You can see for yourself, like, you know, seeing is believing like we said. And, yeah, you can get your first bottle shots and your first lifestyle image on the house. So you can really see how it works and what a difference it makes. Like, I've You know, obviously, I'm quite passionate about this coming from the world of like design and communication, but the way you present yourself to the world as a winery US, any product or person for that matter is one of the biggest return on investment that you can do Like, it's it's a small investment and it can really pay you back in spade. So I would really encourage you to not discard whether you do it without January or with somebody else. Like, it's just something like, don't discount it. I know It technically doesn't sound like that important, but it's so it's so is. And one thing that I picked a lot of pride as well, without chartering is first, the clients we work with, they've been working with us for years, like, once that I You are the solution. We don't need to reinvent the wheel, so it just feels very validating, but also we help the wine industry present themselves in more creative way. Like, the the team we work with, they just often get, like, a breath of fresh air and creativity on how they can market themselves. Like, know, like, I work with a creative director in the world of wine. It's just like really trying to, you know, go beyond, you know, the stereotypical, like, barrel, wine, grape, and cheese. You know, like, these are the place, but it is so much more. Like, I think that's why I'm so passionate. Like, wine is such an interesting product in the world of, like, consumers, and I think we can just do so much more and, be so much more enticing and sell much more, if we present ourselves. At the end of the day, that that's what it's all about. You know, I I get I get asked this all the time. I'm sure you did too. What's the best bottle of wine? And my answer is the one I just sold. Right? And if this is going to help me sell it better, think of it as the best dressed facing on a shelf, not only are people gonna recognize it, they're gonna reach their arm out for the last meter and pick it up. So I look at this as kind of a a no brainer. For in the wine industry, get high quality images. This is a really efficient way of doing it. And as a former agency guy, it it just alleviates so many problems and just makes it a lot easier to work with. So in terms of, I'm gonna ask you about the big takeaway, but I'm gonna give my big takeaway on, on this. And that is if you cherry pick the three or four or five most important places where these resources are held. So that's Vivino, PIX dot wine and wine searcher. They're all open to receiving high quality imagery, updated, vintage information, critics scores, and reviews, and those kinds of things. And that's the kind of information that is absolutely mandatory to have out there all over the place because you're spending the money to send them the samples and do all this kind of stuff. So why do that and do a poor job of, you know, presenting your product to it? So so much of me, kind of pitching the thing. I'm as passionate about it as Laurie is because I think so many of my clients could benefit from this and just don't So that was my big takeaway. I think you kind of alluded to yours, but, is there another big takeaway that you would like to phrase of what we talked about today? What what can somebody do? My big takeaway is we cannot think that presenting wine brands you know, just passable. Like, oh, it's it's okay. Can't cut it anymore. And, like, he's just, like, you, you know, like, the the world of online everything, especially with the pandemic, has raised the bar across own industries. I may be my local coffee subscription and my local, you know, roster to my cat leader that I get delivered to my door. Like, you know, like, this brand, technically cat leader, it's hard to be less sexy. And that imagery is wonderful, like, even in the pack of, like, and it's just, why would a consumer accept poor quality images for the world of wine? A consumer does not know Nor Care, that it is difficult to photograph. A customer doesn't know NorCare that it's the three tier system and it's difficult sometimes to send physical bottles to a great photographer. Like this is not the consumer's problem. We know it's the reality of our industry, but at the end of the day, you have to present yourself at the same level. If not higher up than what is now the standard. I I think that that kinda expresses it very, very clearly. So Again, the company name is Outchinery. And again, I apologize for being so commercial, but I can tell you it it saves so much hassle with a lot of the clients that I that, I work with to have a resource like that to rely on. It's almost like having, a a design assistant in your back pocket for relatively cheap. So and, I'd like to thank Laurie for coming up with the idea. I I will admit I was wrong in the beginning. You next left it. So it makes you still very right. Now I do, and that's why I reached out to, do her to have on the show. Laurie, thank you for for joining us. Thank you, Steve. Really appreciate being here. And for my listeners, we'll be back next week with another, perhaps, less commercial thing, but it I'll I'll be equally passionate about it, and, we'll have an interesting subject to interview. So thank you all for listening to get US market ready with Italian wine people on the Italian wine podcast. Thank you. This is Steve Ray. 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