Justerini & Brookes are one of the oldest wine merchants in the world. The business operated on a personal relationship basis supplying royalty and the world’s richest people with fine wines, but the board wanted to expand and drive faster growth. That meant expanding the target and so radically changing the brand & business and the way it operated.
Our task was to identify the most profitable and appropriate target market and recommend how to position the offer.
Our process combined:
- analysis of the competition and market
- consumer qualitative research to scope the potential target markets
- internal culture change
It was imperative that the existing, very high end business, wasn’t cheapened by the process of extending the target. To this end we developed three levels of membership and service based on spend (or potential spend). Each level was kept completely separate so the high end customers enjoyed even more personal attention and bespoke service than before; whereas the other tiers had a more standardised service, with the 3rd layer being predominantly web-based. Added to this, was a system that encouraged consumers to trade up their ‘membership’.
Every aspect of the business changed. We recommended that the business shifted away from supplying restaurants, as the margins were significant lower, into focusing on the consumer. Even the hallowed stocking policy was changed substantially with New World wines being represented seriously for the first time. The final part of the jigsaw was to change the culture of the business. It needed to change from being about ‘old money’ and elitist as it intimidated and repelled the new target. We did this through creative workshops including the full senior team in the process. We also did consumer interactions with the team, where the team could experiment and see how their attitude and service style shifted consumer perceptions. This is a powerful way to shift attitudes.
By the end of the process we had the whole company fired up behind the new vision. Justerini & Brookes was transformed from a small specialist wine merchant supplying royalty to an upmarket wine brand for all those trading up from retail wanting more service.
