Ep. 804 Guillaume Jourdan | Uncorked

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 courses in Hong Kong Russia, New York, and verona. Thank you, make the cut. Apply now at viniti international dot com. Hello, everybody. My name is Holly Hammond, and you are listening to UnCorked, the Italian wine podcast series about all things marketing and communication. Join me each week for candid conversations with experts from within and beyond the wine world. As we explore what it takes to build a profitable business in today's constantly shifting environment. In this episode, we welcome Guillaume Shorda, founder and CEO of Vita Bella luxury and lifestyle, a marketing and communications consultancy dedicated to wine brands. His expertise has informed the strategies of more than two hundred and fifty international wine brands, including Tatinger, Miraval, Famy Perin, and Gusborne, just to name a few. Listen as we dive into the confounding gap between established analog marketing and new fandangled digital spaces, exploring how luxury brands can implement these tactics today to ensure that they remain relevant in the years to come. Let's get into it. So I understood you wanted to talk about the pace of digital transformation in the luxury sectors. So so first of all, if I may start, I would say that luxury brands were not immune. To the difficulties of twenty twenty, but they recovered quickly to reach pre pandemic levels of growth by, twenty twenty one. And how did they achieve that? Part of the explanation comes from the fact that luxury brands were timely in doubling down their investment on e commerce and digital marketing and customer engagement also. The the luxury brands that were able to leverage digital technologies to increase customer engagement and shopping experience perform well and we are more resilient according to what we have seen. These tech these tactics include virtual shopping experiences, live streaming, and social retail. We should not forget about China, which is, has, you know, the major market for luxury brands. We are not here talking about, wine, but, luxury as a wall. So luxury commerce innovations in Asia. We are key for this sector. I think about, launching social commerce shops such as using WeChat. That helped, dramatically. Then, I believe brands understood very early that social commerce meets luxury retail, and this is what we have to understood to understand in the wine industry. The linking of the social and digital word with the traditional luxury retail experience is huge. We call it social retail. At its core, the social retail concept is a store based around the idea that our offline and online lives are intrinsically linked. This is this is a very important point. It marks a shift in how brands engage with customers and ultimately imagine what online to offline will look like in the future. So this is exactly the space that my agency works in, and and we've noticed spot on with what you're saying. Brands that either because of leadership or capital or both, whether they're in the luxury or the non luxury market, who had the capacity to rapidly move into digital. Were able to profit at a time when, you know, there was there was so much stress in the world. Looking at it now, though, looking at what's happening in digital and wine, some things that we saw were that as COVID and pandemic lockdowns were ending. There were a lot of brands who were saying, okay, we've done this, but now we're gonna go back to the way that we were doing things before the pandemic lockdowns. What are you seeing in luxury for forward momentum or someone like Ermez who just posted, you know, reduced earnings, perhaps not reduced, but they did not meet their targets for the quarter and I actually have some stories about that. Are are you finding that luxury brands are now just plowing head first into it or some of them going back to what worked before the pandemic? K. They are just, moving forward, and they understand that shops are very, very important also. That's the reason why they now invest in new shops. They are changing the their distribution network also, but they are they are moving to add some some shops. But but definitely, you know, you have e commerce, social commerce, shops, all this together. We didn't have that's, that business before before COVID. And Mhmm. I think, to today commerce and social commerce is very crucial to attract luxury consumers because consumers they rely on on e commerce and social commerce to engage with anyone? I wanna tell you a story what happened to me on my way to VIN Expo. And I'm going to out myself in a way that people will probably tease me for. I have been a collector of hermes for twenty five years. I am a luxury shopper. I own the fact that I I love the market. I love the experience. I love the beauty of it. Right? So I live in Barcelona. I was getting ready to leave for VIN Expo, and also I work in digital where what we've heard in luxury for probably five or six years before there was ever a COVID around was that we're trying to marry the digital and the analog experiences through outstanding customer service through, CRMs, through good data, you know, that that the what we call the IRL in real life versus URL, which is online, was coming together. So I got on the phone, and I called Ermez, and I had a product number. I said, do you have this particular product in stock This is not a cheap product. So, no, they don't have it in stock. I said, do you have anything in these colorways? You'll need to give us your phone number, and someone else will need to call you so that we can figure out how to send pictures to you of what we have in stock. I said, can you courier it to me? I mean, I can get McDonald's curriered up the street if I spend ten bucks. Right? And they said, no. I am literally five kilometers from the Airmez store in Barcelona. I'm like, can you just put it in a courier and send it to me? Cause I'm getting on a plane tomorrow, and they said, no. We can't do that. The the digital shopping, the e commerce version, has, has three to four day delays before it even ships out. And that's that's not a a part of the shipping issues right now. Like, that's always been the case. So what I'm wondering is how much of this is talk and trade PR, and how much of these changes are actually taking place in the stores where we as users interface with the luxury brands? It's a mix of, all you have mentioned. But, definitely, the luxury brands have to to replicate customer behaviors. They see in store increasing personalization. So they have to get touch with you. They have to to to talk with you. Sometimes they have to understand better your, your, your request. But, definitely, it's, luxury brands understand the way we move. They they understand the way customers change what they are looking for. I'm happy to to to to to know that you are, a hemisphere for for twenty five years because I know very well the the brand and the and the people. But the thing is it's not true for a lot of, luxury consumers. So this is they are not, always buying the same brands and they are changing. They are moving to other brands. They are buying one product for MS. And then for ten years, they don't buy anything from MS. They go to Off White. They go to Gior. So Customer customers like you, consumers like you, we don't we don't have many, I would, I would say. That is interesting because one of the things that I notice we don't talk about much when we're discussing the digital space and the luxury brands, is data acquisition. So, you know, I I think a lot of us know the story of LVMH, having their CRM custom built for them. It was it was quite an undertaking and I have not had a chance to play with that at all. I I don't know how that brings together data. But if I'm looking at any of the big houses, and I'm saying they have amassed an absolute credible database around consumer behavior that can then advise their choices across all of those brands. Can you talk a little bit about data acquisition and data usage in the luxury space? We we need in the luxury space. We need more and more data. And that's the reason why with NFTs, with the blockchain, we have a a a huge chance to to move forward and to have some more some more information. Because when you are talking about luxury, you are also talking about the second hand market, knowing that when you have the first acquisition made by yourself, for example, by your consumer, then maybe this consumer, Antonio's time will sell it to another person, and we want to know this person because she will be interested by some offers in the future because she bought on the second hand market, a product for, let's say, hair mess. And because she's interested by the brand, she's attracted by the, the look and feel of our of our products. So and thanks to NFTs, thanks to, blockchain. We can get this information. So database is of huge importance for luxury brands. So you brought up NFTs. So I've I really wanna discuss this. You wrote an article for Jane Anson's inside Bordeaux I think a lot of us have read and is the reason that I reached out to you for this interview. I'm going to preface these questions by saying, I work in tech and wine. I'm completely pro digital. I I think that anything we can do to better understand our audience or just to take risks. I mean, we're so risk averse. I think any of that is fabulous, but I have questions. And I know that if I have questions about NFTs in the space that I work in, then there are a lot of people who have questions about NFTs. So, can we go through some of those? Yes. My questions about NFTs and why? Okay. There is an enormous and documented environmental cost to NFTs. And and some of the data is a single addition of an NFT artwork equals one month's electricity consumption for an EU resident and Ethereum. And although there's some argument around how much, the weight of NFTs or the percentage of NFTs as Ethereum usage, But Ethereum is responsible for ninety six million tons of c o two or the combined annual emissions of eighty four carbon intensive countries. I really struggled to reconcile that with the fact that in wine, we are at the forefront of, you know, climate change impact. How do we, as an industry, find a happy space between the benefits or the the, the knowledge that the data that comes out of NFTs and the weight of these in in climate change and environmental issues. If we want to be in the wine industry I'm talking about into the sustainable at the at at the at the front of, how you say it? Leading the sustainable development, it would mean we stop technology. So we don't communicate through social media. We don't use Internet anymore, and we go back like the old way. We are selling our wines at the store and and travelers should should come to our place. And this way, we will make sure that we we are the forefront of the, the sustainable development, our sustainable development strategy. But we can't. We have to move forward. We have to use technology. I agree with you. NFTs have this huge problem. But if your competitors are using this and you don't, Your industry is dead. That's the reason why it has to be a consideration. What do you want to do? Do you do you want to not accept the NFT technology. And do you prefer to stay as you were doing before and not getting all the data that all our all your competitors in the luxury industry are are are are getting This, this is a point of view. This is a way. But most of the time, when you have an industry, when in, in, in wine or any other, area, you need to develop your company some companies are listed on the stock market. So that's the reason why you need to develop. That's the case of Hermas, per for example, they are listing on the stock market. So they have to make sure that every quarter, they develop their business, and they are making even more money, and they are even more profitable. All they say, we consider that NFTs are not good for the environment, and we as a brand or as an industry. We say we we don't go into into this, because it's not in line with our, poly policy in terms of sustain sustainable development. What you're saying is this is a mitigated risk. If we don't do it, we have no industry. So we have to walk the line between having between profits and sustainability. So I I think that that's really fair. Also, in the context of it's about progress, it's not about perfection. Forty, I gonna I gonna give you an example. It was ten, fifteen, ten, let's say ten years ago. And in the wine industry, people were telling me, we we don't need social media. You know, you know, we are working with famous wine brands. We are inviting them for now fifteen. I still have people say that just so you know. And more than fifteen years, And and when we were advising to have a social media strategy, they were looking at us, and they were saying, we don't need this, this is for other industries, but not the wine industry. It's not the way we want to to go. Now they all ask for social media strategy. That will be exactly the same for NFTs. They don't accept this because it's related to crypts cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrencies have so much risk. And and and so on, and it's related to our blockchain technology. They don't understand. But when Facebook, which is meta, but in a few, let's say, in a few months, will be the real meta, and everyone will use it. When everyone will be into the metaverse, The those the wine industry will understand that blockchain is extremely important. NFTs will be even more important. And being in the metaverse will be important in the future. We are now at the beginning of a revolution. This I call I call it a disruption. Kristen, when he wrote in ninety nine, The innovator's dilemma was talking about disruption. This is exactly what we are saying now. In ninety six, ninety seven people saw the internet as a huge boom, a new, a revolution, and This is what we are saying now with the blockchain and with with NFT. So many people in the wine industry, they don't consider it. They don't want to consider it. They don't want to go into it, but they will have to go in a near future or in a medium term future. Okay. So if we go back to what you were saying about about social media and wine being slow to adopt new digital, One of the reasons that we hear from brands is that it was never factored into their margins. The new costs of communication are extraordinary. And I wanna bring up something that we saw happen. I think it was the middle of last year that to be fair still pisses me off to no end. In NFTs, there is a website called Bitcoin. I don't know if you've ever seen it, where a Toronto Sommelier recreated hundreds of wine brand bottles as pixel art and has sold them. And I I actually looked them up today. You've got the n f t. It's not overtly branded, but when you look at this pixel art, you know exactly what it is. I actually found one of my client's bottles on there this morning. So the Dom sells for sixteen hundred dollars, of course, in cryptocurrency. The reason I bring this up is we see what just happened. And, again, I'm on an air mess kick today, but we see what happened with the Meta Birkins. Where Ermez suddenly was having to control a brand now in the metaverse. I can't imagine the additional costs of any any of our wine brands having to monitor respond and and legally respond to issues of their branding now just living in in the internet. How do we where does that money come from? Where does that that knowledge come from? How do we handle that as a business issue? I'm talking with US lawyers, UK lawyers, French lawyers on a huge topic now very important for brands. And, first of all, a v LVMH, first, and and ARMS. This is about intellectual property. Now, we are going into a universe where there are no regulation. China decided to go to Metiverse and to NFTs with their own regulation. I think that the rest of the world will have to define an environment with regulation for these new worlds. What does that mean? That mean that Today hermes is going to the court to the court because of the Metabirque. Where are they going to the court? They are not going in France. They are going to the US, which is the leading, I would say the leading word for all these problems. They are going to the South District of of New York. And here we start understanding that we will have more and more of these problems that brings the governments to create and to write some new regulation. So at the end, when the governments consider this new regulation, small companies like ours, wine estate won't have to take care of it. We will have, a, a universe where it will be, I would say nicely framed with some regulation. So as we are at the beginning, her mess had this problem. Now I believe also, don't pay any other elite group, all the luxury brands will have these programs. They they go now one by one because they are the forefront. But in the future, through thanks to regulation, we won't go one by one, like the wine estate would do. But we will have regulation, and those guys will have this we will create in the future or meter beer cans will have some problems with the regulations and not with the brands. But but what's the what's the, follow on effect of that if we extrapolate beyond the metaverse? And we say, well, now if I'm a painter, I can't paint, image that has a bottle of dom perignon in it because I am at risk of what is effectively product or copyright infringement. Like, Where does the regulation of what is being argued as art stop with relation to these brands? It's it's difficult. We we are now. I'm I'm talking, you know, every week. I'm having something like for six hours on on this topic because it's it's a tough topic and all our brands which are into luxury. It's not only wine, but cosmetic and jewelry. They they they they are looking at this very, very precisely. So I I can't answer your question because we are the beginning of this reflection. But the thing but but the thing is you can't use a product associated to a brand without the, acceptance of the brand itself. That's it. This is what we call intellectual property. For LVMH in twenty twenty one, tech was, five. It was the top five, I wanna say, one of the top five for trademark filings. So what that includes when they say tech is computers, software, electrical, and scientific IP. So this is much more than NFTs. So let's actually talk about digital in a context of wine and luxury. You know, from your experience with all of these brands, what's going on here? What is the computer software, electrical, and scientific that big brands are looking at right now? For the wine industry. Sure. And we are we are lagging behind all of the all the order or luxury, luxury brands in, in other industries because we don't have the means, the financial means to be at the at the forefront. So we we will see account account tell you right now. The thing is what we see is, there is a new development and, we will have to go in to to consider this new development, but I I can't tell you right now. Well, I I love the fact that you said we don't have the financial means because our thing has been for years. We have problems with our business model. As an industry. And for most of wine, there's simply not the money there to do what we're seeing other industries do. So this is kind of a foundation problem. I think that that we need to solve. You actually said in one of your articles on positioning, you said it is much easier to launch a new brand with new positioning than it is to try to rehabilitate an existing brand. And alter those prices. So do you think that this is a space where we should be looking at, alternative identities, sub brands, sister brands that will allow us to change the terms of of of our positioning and how we actually play in the market? Regarding financial means definitely we we we think that we are into luxury when I'm talking about the wine industry, but we don't have the financial means of the luxury brands. Because first of all, when you look at our sales and when you are looking at our net income, we don't have the same percentage when in the wine industry, when you have a net income, which is equivalent to seven or ten percent of your sales revenue, you are very, very happy. And, in the, in, in the lecture industry, three. Let's talk about cosmetics or jewelry, watch industry. It's it has nothing to do with this. It's higher, much, much higher. Which means that for all our clients, which are into a cosmetic. For example, we are investing something like fifteen or twenty percent of their annual, revenue into communication and marketing. Please name one or two wine brands who can do this. Do you know the actual, average spend for marketing and wine is between four and six percent. That's, the marketing spend. And this is such a hurdle to overcome. I agree with you entirely. That's why they said that. Champagne brands were leading in this because they have been doing marketing thirty years ago, and they they are making some nice margin. So that's it's it's it could do it, but when you are in still wines. It's difficult. So, like in any industry, trying to rejuvenate a brand or to reposition a brand that had that existed for, let's say, fifty years or hundred years. It's quite difficult. It's better to go and and and build a new, a new brand. Look, look at Miraval with Brad Pitt that with We have been advising now since two thousand eleven, and the first vintage was two thousand twelve. I consider that and we consider that the the brand Miraval was a new brand. And we created we position it as a new brand. Look at the success. I feel that this is one of the most successful wine brand we have in the world. And I think that over ten years, We have done a tremendous job to make it extremely powerful. So you can create some new brands. You can make them very powerful within a short a short period. Ten years is nothing. When you look at the history of Huntinori, which is seven something like seven hundred years old or, family, you yell, who are also very, for centuries and and still in the same family. So Mirava is just ten years, but this is a huge success. So creating a new brand with financial means would be, I believe, would be the best Reverage rejuvenating, making a new repositioning, old brand. It's always difficult because you have to go through its DNA you have maybe to change the mindset of the people who are working in this, for this brand. Sometimes the people have been working very long for this brand, and it's it's it's very much about change management when you are talking about brand repositioning because it's not only about having the right ID. It's also to change the mindset of the people and the management tried to make this brand very successful for decades. Let me jump in. Did do you work primarily with French brands? No. No. The French brands No. The minority for us. That that's why I asked because French brands, we find so difficult for exactly what you're talking about. The getting getting that forward momentum, digital transformation, is just it it's such a difficult, difficult hurdle to overcome. And and it's funny because we do see with our American brands, almost a willingness to go into some things too fast. You know? So trying to find the really good balance between, wise spending, because that's ultimately what we're talking about, and and a good space that I've seen this happen in, or maybe it's not good. We can talk about this. Has to do with AR and VR. Something that wine has been trying to accomplish for, I wanna say possibly a decade now, and we only have one example, that was nineteen crimes. It was in the broad market. Are are you seeing anyone that is successfully using some kind of immersive media in wine? No. No. Because the costs are, again, high. For the wine industry. So we we need some more time to have them into, into AR and and VR. But definitely, again, this is a future because When you look at, we are working with some guys. They are working for for museums. And in Sanpetersburg, you have a famous museum called Ermitage. And they have been working on a beautiful project which is recreating airmitage, yeah, VR technology. What does that mean? That mean that you are very inclusive. Not only the people who are traveling to Sanpetersburg can visit. The Ammitage Museum, which is beautiful. But also, thanks to, fifteen or twenty dollars, you can also visit it through through VR. And for the wine industry that will be the same, when we when you are a powerful brand, you want to have some people traveling to your place and experience your brand. That's for sure. But you want also to have people from all over the world, even if they can't travel to your place, to visit the the place, and to have an experience, which is at the closest to what they could have if they had reached the, the, the chateau or the, or the wine estate. So so, definitely, this is the future. The technology to make it at a at a low cost is not there right now. It's still very expensive to make it But this is the future for the wine industry. Is this a challenge for our regulations? And I'm I'm gonna actually cite some things happening in luxury right now. So if you go to the Gucci collaboration with Roblox, So Roblox was historically a children's game, you know, and and Roblox actually does a lot of marketing to get younger people generating content, you know, new games, on the platform. So Gucci can have a relationship with Roblox that alcohol could never have. How do we how do we be expansive in our digital experiences but also restrictive because of regulations that are different around the world. So there are regulation all over the world that that makes it more difficult for for the wine industry. That's that's for sure, but If you want to, to, to go into into this, you can also think about using your brand, in a different way than with alcohol related products, which means that you could have some brands that are into alcohol, but that will sell or sell some other products. And these products branded with the same brand as the one in alcohol could be used in, in the in the Metavirus. Let me let let me tell you about one example. If you have, t shirt where don't be ringing is returned on it, There is no program to go into Metiverse with this. This is the same thing we see for brands with tourism, is that we can often circumvent local legislation regulations for marketing if we have products that are not the alcohol. Last question. Does any of this risk alienating our established customer base in fine wine? Not at all. Not at all. Again, we want to provide the best service to talking about the fine wine industry to our customers. We want to bring the best experience with technology, with the blockchain, with NFTs, with VR, this is exactly what we want to do. You use it or you don't use it. It's up to you as a consumer. But if you want to have more experience, if you want to, have a better service, if you want to know more about your your brand, your favorite brand, If you want to promote to be the best ambassador in the world of your favorite wine brand, fine wine brand. Technology is a huge leverage. And so, definitely, it's not a question of alienation. It's a question of bringing some added value. And in the luxury industry, this is what we are all about. We are all about bringing added value bringing value that no other industry can offer. And even in the fine wine industry, we can do this not only cosmetic in what the watch industry. In the fine wine industry, we can do And by leveraging on technology, we can provide it. So it's definitely not a question of alienation. It's a question of proposing, having a new proposal and giving the best to our consumers. Thank you. That that was an excellent interview. I really appreciate your time. And, I'm I'm going to say one of the things that has heartened me through this interview is that what you're saying is a lot of what we are saying too. And so often, we feel like the odd man out in wine. When we're talking to wine brands, we're trying to get them to understand the value of digital experiences, of immersion, of data, and we can't get them to get past the line in the bottle. And I'm just extraordinarily grateful to you. I know we had some trouble scheduling because we were both be bopping around VINX though. But thank you, Dion. I I'm glad to have had the chance to talk to you today. Yes. And and just to the the last point, Podi, our view at VITabella, is that when brands can't just rely on every page and craftsmanship and provenance. So that's the reason why we need this, technology. And we need to change the the the mindset of the people in the wine industry. To understand that if their brands become predictable and stop surprising, the custom the customers will move on. You could be in the fine wine industry or any other industry in the wine, area. Don't do only what is expected. The customers need desire an emotion. They they want to try to do things differently. Well, there's, so I've read a lot of I wanna say Yeah. I think that's right. Yeah. Who who writes, obviously extensively, extensively on luxury, and he writes about this issue of heritage, right, as part of our brand signature, and how heritage can be a double edged sword. So you can either lean so heavily into history and the way it's always been that you are stalling your own progress, or you can become the arbiter of what how does this vision translate into the future? And that's where I see leadership as profound in these changes, a leader who can come in and can recognize that they are the steward or the guardian of intent rather than practice. And we just need more of those in wine. Of course. Of course. And in the world. Yes. Of course. And when you are when when you are talking about the fine wine consumers and all all the wine brands are talking to me and say, oh, we have to take care of the fine wine consumers, but they are take they are talking about the the fine wine consumers of today. I am talking about the fine wine consumer in the future. And this is completely different. Going into Metavirus for the fine wine consumers of today may be strange, may be alienating, may be awkward, for the future of fine wine consumers. It's part of its life. It's quite natural. Your brand is not there. You are old. You are there. And what a way to wrap an incredible interview with Guillaume. Thank you for listening and a very special thank you to Guillaume for being with us today. The Italian wine podcast is among the leading wine podcast in the world. And the only one with daily episodes. Tune in each day and discover all our different shows. Be sure to join us next Sunday for another look at the World of wine marketing. Hi guys. I'm Joy Livingston, and I am the producer of the Italian wine podcast. Thank you for listening. We are the only wine podcast that has been doing a daily show since the pandemic began. This is a labor love and we are committed to bringing you free content every day. Of course, this takes time and effort not to mention the cost of equipment, production, and editing. We would be grateful for your donations, suggestions, quests and ideas. 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