An Expensive Evening Taking a Turn for the Best
A Classic Mix-Up, or Not?
Imagine you’re getting dinner at a nice restaurant, and you decide to order a bottle of wine along with your meal. You request something more upscale than the average table wine that would cost several hundred dollars, but certainly not several thousand. Imagine your surprise when the bottle of wine that arrives at your table is almost $6,000!
Perusing a popular online news source earlier this week, I came across an interesting article. “A restaurant diner who ordered a nice bottle of red wine to go with their dinner got something a bit fancier than they were expecting—a bottle worth $5,800. The customer at the Manchester, England, branch of steak chain Hawksmoor ordered a 2001 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, which is listed at £260 ($335), a PR company representing the restaurant told CNN.”
A costly error on the server’s part, right? The customer was never aware of the mistake, and it was only later in the evening that one of the managers realized what had happened. But, what caught everyone’s attention was how the restaurant handled the incident. Only a handful of people need ever have known, yet they decided to go public with the mistake. And, since we’ve become dependent on social media for situations like these, a higher up in the restaurant gave a shout out to the server on Twitter, “Chin up! One-off mistakes happen and we love you anyway.” From a marketing and PR standpoint, I’d say the company made a good move. Comments on social media praised the restaurant for not only treating their employee like an actual human being (who made a mistake as humans are prone to do) but also for creating a huge PR buzz. At this point, it can be argued that the restaurant stands to gain from the now infamous switcheroo.
What Does the Swap Say About Packaging?
This whole wine debacle got me thinking in a slightly different direction—if the customer didn’t realize the difference in the wines, what’s more important to consider when drinking wine? The taste? Or the brand? Brands tell stories. And a brand has the opportunity to offer an emotional experience with a product; a draw to win customer loyalty. Not to say that a $10 bottle of wine tastes anything like a $335 or $5,800 bottle of wine for that matter (I took a wine tasting class while studying in Italy—as an amateur wine connoisseur, I can attest that there is a difference). But once the wine reaches a certain standard, how do you differentiate your $300 wine from the $3,000 wine? The answer: your brand.
If differentiation sounds daunting, I can point you to a few great resources. Package Insight uses qualitative data in the form of eye-tracking, facial coding, EEG, GSR, and other methods to scientifically compare your brand to that of your competitors. They have helped countless companies understand the intersection of design and human behavior, and how that relates to your packaging. The professional team at Package Insight works hard to discover how your brand can stand out and tell the story you want it to tell. You can also check out the packaging certificates we offer for an in-depth education that can help boost your packaging IQ.
What would your brand say about you?
Are you $10, $300 or $6,000 bottle of wine?
