Storminghoek

The last post by Raul got me thinking . . .
At first I tended to agree with Raul's point about going off the point of this blog with his mentioning of www.stormhoek.com, however whilst eating lunch (meatball soup from Pret a Manger) I actually realised that Raul had hit on something really important re: Stormhoek and brand participation.

The whole Stormhoek wine blog marketing campaign is designed to generate a grassroots word of mouth buzz (both online and offline) around the brand by tapping into geek networks across the world and getting key influencers to talk about and interact (drink!) with the brand.

Conceptually what Stormhoek are doing is getting people across the world to participate in their marketing campaign, and do the marketing for them. This only works with a good marketing execution, and a good product, and it seems that Stormhoek have got both spot on. Raul's talking about Stormhoek in Amsterdam, I'm now talking about it in London . . . and so on . . . the buzz has started.

This links in with an early point (again made by Raul) about the different ways in which brands can open themselves up to participation. What Stormhoek are doing with their present blog campaign is getting people participating in their marketing process and online brand presence (i.e. the Stormhoek brand). This is an extremely bold move, and shows an extreme belief in their product.

Furthermore, thinking more about it, I might even make the bold claim that Stormhoek is actually a classic example of an open source brand - allowing consumers to shape their identity, with the public freely allowed to post their experience of interacting with the product live on their website and share photos of their experiences.

Googling around for other wine-brands shows actually how darn forward-thinking Stormhoek are, with their competition creating stale corporatey online brand communications like www.piat.co.uk. The two approaches are simply a million miles apart. Having drunk a bottle or two of Piat in my student days maybe there's a clear reason for not going the Stormhoek route.

So, all in all Raul I'd give yourself a pat on the back for accidentally stumbling across an open source brand in progress! Genius! I'd be interested to see if Stormhoek lives up to the hype, and their strategy actually pays dividends . . . over to you Mr. Lansink and your drunken Geek dinner . . .