French wine makers look to spice up image

BORDEAUX, France, June 21 (Reuters) Can free rugby balls, a bottle in a heart-shaped box or dressed up as a pair of jeans sell wine? French wine producers are looking to spice up their marketing to make their bottles stand out on shelves increasingly stacked with hundreds of foreign competitors.

Critics say France's wine marketing is nonexistent, too complicated, or stuffy. In the middle- to low-end market where purchases are increasingly made on the spur of the moment, French winemakers are losing out to new world producers who have mastered the art of catching the consumer's eye.

''French wine producers need to chill out a bit,'' said Philippe Morel, a sales director for Sleever International, a participant at Vinexpo, the world's largest wine fair.

''They've got to make it easier to understand and use the packaging to seduce the consumer. Seven purchases out of 10 are decided on the moment of sale,'' he adds.

The French wine industry is steeped in tradition and complicated rules that are difficult for the average foreign wine drinker to understand and this is reflected in marketing.

The French government is pushing for change. On Monday, Farm Minister Christine Lagarde said she was looking into tweaking the wine classification to align it more with market demands and she urged producers to make their wines more understandable.

In a sign that France is starting to get the message, Vinexpo has for the second time organised a special section dedicated to marketing. The first time hardly anybody turned up and while it is separated from the main display, attendance is starting to pick up.

Morel is standing in front of a cabinet of brightly coloured bottles wearing ''le Sleeve''.

He picks out BB Cap, a handbag-sized bottle of sparkling wine that has been dressed in the plastic bright pink sleeve.

The bottle will be sold in bars and restaurants in America and targets urban women aged between 25 and 35.

On a neighbouring stand, Michel Etienne's company, Soft Computing offers practical advice about selling in a foreign market, mostly to smaller companies or cooperatives since the big names usually have their own in-house marketing.

''If you try to sell the same wine in the UK, Poland and Romania, you have to target three different markets,'' he said.

''For a small company, this would be difficult.'' Salary variations, the cost of living, cultural differences or exchange rates, can all affect how a product is pitched.

LATE TO THE GAME Etienne has only been offering export advice to French producers since 1992.

''Nobody thought about international until then,'' he said.

But he and others in the marketing area, say there is rising demand for their services as producers realise they need to work on their image.

New world wine producers Chile and Argentina are up one end of the main hall. Their stands are buzzing with potential buyers who are swilling away on the wine that is sold in bottles with minimalist labels, catchy names and amusing pictures.

That contrasts to many of the French labels that have stuck to traditional designs, give information on the chateau or , details which are lost on the average Saturday night drinker.

One French wine producer that seems to have got the marketing right is the French winemaker Gabriel Meffre.

All over the exhibition hall, people are carrying bags with the eye-catching ''Fat Bastard'' logo and a picture of its trademark hippopotamus.

The brand was launched 15 years ago based on a Chardonnay from the Languedoc, one of the regions that has been worst hit by competition from foreign wines.

It was designed with the export market in mind and now exports nearly 5 million bottles each year to the United States.

Celine Fialon, the product head for company has some advice for struggling French winemakers: ''They need to listen to what the market says. Lots of owners make the wine they like but it's not necessarily what the consumer wants.'' REUTERS LPB RK0905