I have been fortunate to know Rob Symington for many years, thanks to our work on the brand strategy of Primum Familiae Vini. In the Symingtons, a family of Portuguese winegrowers whose history is measured in generations, I have always found the same rare quality: the conviction that, in the world of wine, strategy is not an academic exercise but a condition of survival. I was therefore not surprised to read, last week, what Rob has to say about Berry Bros. & Rudd, the oldest wine merchant in Britain, of which he is now Co-CEO: “We want to move the house from a merchant people buy from to a world they want to belong to.”
What, in practice, is Berry Bros. & Rudd doing? The house has just launched House of 1698, a membership community in three tiers: Green, Gold and Black. Each one weaves together personal advice, access to sought-after wines and spirits, and a programme of exclusive events, to which are added privileges extended by BBR and a select circle of partners: leading producers, restaurants, hotels. Rob Symington puts it thus: the aim is to move beyond a “transactional, product-push model” towards a holistic proposition that brings together levels of service, access to product, community, experiences and partner privileges. A customer’s standing will open doors not only at No. 3, the historic address on St James’s Street, but also in fine restaurants, hotels and estates, across wine and spirits alike. And whatever the tier of membership, there will always be someone at BBR to talk to. The upper levels are designed for the most committed collectors, but the spirit remains the same for all: to be looked after.
The Customer Does Not Need More Choice
This runs against a deeply ingrained reflex in our trade: when competitive pressure mounts, widen the range, multiply the references, swell the catalogue. Yet the customer does not need more choice. He is already drowning in it. What he needs is to be cherished. He wants to be taken care of, in the physical world and the digital one alike, with the same quality of attention. This is what the theorists of relationship marketing have long described, and what luxury houses have always practised: value no longer resides in the product alone, but in the relationship, the sense of belonging, the standing it confers. It is hardly surprising that a well-conceived community yields higher conversion rates, more lasting loyalty and a lower sensitivity to price. The customer who belongs to a world no longer compares labels; he stays.
It is what every château, domaine and Champagne house must do if it wishes to cross the threshold of the coming decades. Above all, the threshold of the new generations, who no longer buy wine as their parents did: they seek meaning, experience, a community in which to recognise themselves. And this is precisely what we have been doing for our clients since 2005 at VitaBella.
Deciding When Great and Strong
There remains the most precious lesson of this story, one that reaches well beyond the world of wine. Without a medium- and long-term vision, Berry Bros. & Rudd could have remained what it was: a wine merchant from whom one sources one’s bottles, venerable and respected. It would then have been caught up with, and ultimately overtaken, by a changing world and a shifting competitive landscape.
But they decided otherwise—and rightly so, at just the right time: such decisions must be made when one is great and strong, not when one is at the bottom of the pit. A company in a position of strength possesses what others sorely lack: time, resources, the trust of its customers, and the freedom to err a little. Once in the abyss, it is already too late: one no longer chooses one’s strategy, one endures the one dictated by circumstance.
Strategic vision has nothing of the mystical inspiration about it. It is a discipline: to look at where the customer is going before he gets there, to relinquish a proven logic in order to build a new one, and to hold the course long enough for results to emerge. It also demands a certain courage, the courage to unsettle what still works. Berry Bros. & Rudd have understood this and, after more than three centuries, reminds us of it with elegance.
Contact Guillaume Jourdan via LinkedIn
