There’s an age-old nectar in Cyprus, Commandaria, that comes pack and parcel with mind-blowing tidbits. The vintage would sell itself round the world, given the chance. In fact, and I kid you not, most of the marketing has already been devised by yours truly.
I did it because I have a special connection with the vintage, a very special place in my heart. Suffice to say I had some great times because of it, seminal and formative.
So the marketing’s ready, sitting around in treatment form, waiting, brewing. All that’s missing is the copy. It’s just waiting to be written up, pressed into a classic distillation.
Cheeky metaphors aside, the potential is real. Great success stories in luxury items have had much less to work with, yet they trailblazed through modern trade, becoming number one products, if not paragons of global culture.
Patron, for example, the tequila brand — it made its breakthrough with a little savvy marketing and a whole lot of punch, packaging its product in cool bottles and selling them to Vegas, Hollywood, and celebrities, and then to the rest of the world, all on the steam of cool luxury . . . Patron! The hip agave azul product! The one you want to be drinking!
And Grey Goose, the French vodka you see wherever you go, in bars and clubs around the world, from London to Singapore and Buenos Aires to Dubai — it broke through, all the way to the top, contrary to all expectations (whoever heard of French vodka before?) beating the likes of Stoli and other Russian giants using its big marketing stick.
If these companies made it with admittedly good quality products of no significant cultural context, based on marketing campaigns their publicity experts came up with from scratch, surely the world’s most enduring wine brand can do as good, if not better.
Until it does, Commandaria, a superb-tasting libation, remains a quaint little sweet wine from a quaint little island, which hardly anyone knows of or cares about.
If only the people in charge stopped stroking themselves and realized Commandaria’s potential. If only one could get rid of the shortsighted, moronic, oafish circle jerks in charge of the Commandaria estate, who just sit there, on top of a gem, playing with each other’s penile minds, ejaculating their masturbated thoughts inside each other’s empty heads to make themselves feel better for their complete lack of vision. Cyprus would be a better place and a little sweeter and merrier, and so would the world, care of history’s exemplar sweet vino! Lionheart’s choice! The Knight Templars’ enterprise! The libation of the island of Cyprus, home to some of the world’s earliest human settlements!
Like I said, world-wide marketing potential with a flair for the spectacular. Something for the advertising industry to play with, especially when dealing with a product as enticing as this.
Some would call this an intoxicating prospect. They would run with it to the ends of the world.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/12/europe/gallery/the-oldest-wine-in-the-world/index.html
Part 3 to follow