creating a new wine tasting proposition for treasury wine estates
Senior Visual & Service Designer ∙ Fjord ∙ 2020
Research ∙ Service Design ∙ Product Strategy ∙ Creative Direction & Visual Design
Treasury Wine Estates is a global house of wine brands, such as Penfolds, with core markets in Australia, China and the US.
With an already strong retail presence, our challenge was to help Treasury define a new direct-to-consumer proposition, seeking opportunities to drive growth through new experiences for wine enthusiasts.
DISCOVERY & ANALYSIS
Treasury shared high-value customer archetypes, which we refined as a priority for our focus. Leveraging these archetypes, we recruited participants for qualitative research spanning key markets in China, the US, and Australia.
This research focused on understanding the end-to-end purchasing and consumption journey, identifying key needs and Jobs to Be Done, which we then quantified through further investigation.
Delving into these insights, we were able to pinpoint Moments to Win – crucial touchpoints in the customer journey that could significantly impact satisfaction and loyalty.
These moments were carefully prioritised based on their potential to delight customers and build brand connection, while driving business growth in new contexts.
service concepts & experience strategy
After ideation sessions with our team, subject matter experts in our networks and our stakeholders, we engaged in an extensive process of qualitative testing, refinement, and prioritisation of our concepts, focusing on the US market for pilot.
Bringing together key decision-makers and influencers, we facilitated a vision and alignment workshop, defining priorities, logistics, and the organisation's "right to play" in the market for our key concepts.
finding differentiation
Additionally, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of competitive wine club experiences, evaluating market propositions, strategies, and core experiences.
Identifying opportunities for differentiation and innovation, we refined our strategic approach and core feature sets for our experience.
refining the customer value proposition
Our hero concept was an at-home tasting experience of small bottled wines, with a mix of known and boutique brands. The next stage was to refine the proposition for maximum impact.
To reduce risk and further understand consumer preferences, we ran comprehensive testing of the core proposition, employing multi-variate testing to evaluate four different propositions, with variants on wine selection and curation.
Should it be curated by connoisseurs, is it personalised, or a lucky-dip? Do consumers want wines from around the world, or do they want to stay local and master their own region?
We created landing pages and social media campaigns to test conversion rates, specifically focusing on email sign-up metrics as intent to buy.
Ultimately, all the experiments were successful against conversion benchmarks, but our US-based selection Local Drops was the hero.
Next, we refined the model and go-to-market (GTM) strategy through qualitative interviews with consumers in the US market, which with further quantitative analysis gave us:
optimal portion size per serve
the impact of serving size on drinking occasions
preferred subscription frequency by size
volume of bottles per subscription box
viable price points, and their impact on perceived quality
With more quantitative analysis we landed on our optimal serving size, pricing strategies, subscription frequency, volume of bottles per box, and packaging preferences.
DESIGNING THE EXPERIENCE
The new proposition centred on a wine discovery experience where consumers could blind-taste a set of new wines each month by subscription.
This was linked to a profiling engine that would capture customers’ taste preferences over time for an educational experience, connected to a personalised online wine store.
Through this experience, customers could discover new wines, learn about regions, variants and their own taste preferences so they can choose wines they like more often, and then purchase full-sized bottles direct from the supplier at members’ prices.
Our team’s delivery included:
Experience strategy and principles
MVP and future state journeys
Prototype demonstrating hero features around the core value proposition
High-level features, roadmap for
3-year rolloutPilot plan
outcome
Sadly, a trade embargo with China and shifting priorities led to the project being paused in September 2020.
Less than a year later, a competitor launched an almost identical concept, in curation, portion size and subscription.
Heartbreaking to get beaten to market, but nice to know we were on to something.