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October 2006 - Strategy Magazine
Who to watch

Vincor's Steve Bolliger thrives on launches

by Annette Bourdeau
page 16

It's an old category, but Steve Bolliger sees plenty of room for innovation in wine. From launching Rotting Grape and Mike's Hard Lemonade for Vancouver-based Mark Anthony Cellars to unleashing Naked Grape and Vex for Mississauga, Ont.-based vino giant Vincor Canada, he's always careful not to coast.

"I find sometimes when you're number one, you tend to look backwards instead of forward," says Bolliger, Vincor's SVP marketing. "Staying current is so important." Aside from the aforementioned launches, Bolliger has also boosted Vincor's currency with the introduction of Hydra, a vodka water to beef up the company's cooler roster; Sola Nero sparkling wines; and See Ya Later Ranch, a boutique wine for the Western Canadian market.

"He's launched and developed many great brands...he's brought a ton of things to Vincor," comments Jay Wright, president of Vincor Canada, on Bolliger's eight years with the company. "He really checks things out with the consumer, and has a great gut instinct about what will work."

The Naked Grape launch in fall 2005, which Wright deems "a big success," is a prime example. At trade shows and focus groups, Bolliger kept encountering consumers who asked for oak-free wines. While at first he found such requests unusual, he began getting enough inquiries to justify the launch of an oak-free wine, prompting the birth of Naked Grape. "Wine's pretty tough to differentiate...now we have a product point of difference," says Bolliger. Bos Toronto handled the launch campaign, and came up with the tag "it takes confidence to go unoaked." Cheeky ads feature grapes making bold statements like "I'm new in town, but I'm sure I'll make friends fast."

Bob Blumer, better known as The Surreal Gourmet, serves as a spokesperson for Naked Grape, doing everything from cooking demos at wine trade shows (for meals complemented by Naked Grape, of course) to consumer contests, to sponsored vignettes on the Food Network. So far, the launch has exceeded internal expectations by about 75%.

When Bolliger joined Vincor in 1998 to lead its marketing, his first order of business was to flatten the department and have everyone report to him. He also instilled his five core pillars of marketing - "focus on innovation; increased media support; consumer understanding; superior quality and execution, execution, execution" - into the company's organizational structure, from mandates through to bonus evaluations. "We've now added a sixth," he says. "Listen to your customer."

In the mid-'90s, listening to disenfranchised Gen X consumers paid off nicely for Bolliger during his time at Mark Anthony Cellars. He launched Rotting Grape wine in 1995, and positioned it as an inexpensive, unpretentious option. The bold, copy-driven packaging, which won the Financial Post design effectiveness award in 1996, told the story of some guy making wine in his basement. "We had a [fake] story to tell, and didn't have a huge label. We needed somewhere to put the story," recalls Bolliger. "It was amazing how many people read it."

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