Sula Wines, a noted brand among Indian origin wines, has defied the fact that only exotic label value works in this category. Sula today is reckoned as a premium global brand even though it is homegrown and modestly priced. However, what exactly happens with in-store branding and marketing of a wine brand when static buying pattern in liquor category is so obvious in a market like India? We found out from Cecilia Oldne, VP, Marketing, Sula Vineyards. Edited excerpts.

Although wine is pretty much a sophisticated product, it is still a liquor product and the category is mostly sold over the counter. How have you defied that?

Interestingly and surprisingly, Indian customers today are aware and quite exposed to western lifestyle. This fact may have prompted many hypermarkets in India to dedicate large space to wines. Today, our products are sold through major hypermarket brands like Metro CnC, Spencer's, Nature's Basket etc. The most important in-store marketing tool that we have been using in these spaces is to educate our customers. We focus a lot on educating the walk-in customers on right variety of wines, wine and food pairing, sampling etc. These have helped us achieve good sales though our only exclusive wine shop at the Sula Vineyards Nashik has the highest sale touchpoint so far.

What new trends have you observed lately in the buying pattern across the wine category?

The latest observation is that more and more women are associating with us as customers. Wine's sophistication goes well with a woman's personality as well as wines have the lowest alcohol levels with a focus on health quotient. Keeping our fastest growing customer base, ie women, we have introduced a new line of wines called DIA which includes all varieties of wines but specially designed for women. We have received immense response for this special range from all across the country.

Let us know about your pan-Indian retail stretches and your in-store promotions.

As a wine brand, we have the biggest reach in India consisting about 90 distributors and about 250 distribution points throughout 34 states and union territories. We are stretching it further.

Since our in-store promotions primarily focuses on letting people learn more about wines, we use shelves that have brand story inscribed on them. We stack our bottles at a eye level and neatly so that one can easily pick up the bottles and read the literature attached therewith. We give lot of weightage to sampling and tastings. We have done around 2500 tastings around the country so far and the number is growing.

Recently, we have installed a giant bottle of Sula wine at Hypercity Mumbai and it garnered good impact from our customers. We also launched limited edition bottles for the festivity of holi.

Do you think our regular hypermarkets are ready to sell a product as exclusive as wine.

See, the scenario is changing. These hypermarket chains are cooperative in achieving neat displays and we, through our in-store branding, try to keep the interaction between the customer and hypermarket staff minimum. Of course opening an EBO is not part of our planning simply because managing a store is not our expertise. But we are keen on arranging training for distributors and hypermarket attendants so that the knowledge reaches to our discerning customers.