Stomping grapes

Just walked past one of those little wine stores that sell Canadian product and was thunderstruck by a display for a new line of Niagara plonk, Strut.

Its

four wine 'personalities' are: Chardonista (Chardonnay), Well Heeled White (a white blend of Riesling and Gewurztraminer), Cab Couture (a red blend of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot) and Red Over Heels (Merlot). Priced at $11.95 with a picnic, party, catwalk, sidewalk friendly screw-cap closure, Strut wines suggest stylish, approachable spontaneity.

What's up with disembodied female body parts? Are women just boobs, bums, legs? Don't men strut? How come all the photographers are men? Will drinking it make me strut? Will it make me sexier?

Don't these people read their own ad copy?

Today's young woman is the ultimate multi-tasker; she knows she can have it all and she's going for it. Just check out her Blackberry calendar. Mogul, mom, model and much more ...

Yes because all us mogul mom models are so busy we have to rely on screw caps while doing the catwalk in killer heels and mini-skirts.

I call sexism.

You?

Comments

[Catherine]

Let's have "Strut" bottles with Travolta's swaggering bell-bottoms, Carl Lewis' sprint & Baryshnikov's pirouettes (but cut their heads off)... because men really CAN be any and everything they set their minds to, just like women!

*smirk*

Oh wait, they already are.
Forget it.

[...pat.]

Yah, it's sexist. Probably also a play on words of some wines having "great legs." I think it might be more difficult to capture a guy's legs to get that phrase to spring to mind. Don't know why.

[hysperia]

Noezzzz. Just NOEZZzzzzzzzzzz!

[k'in]

Yes Antonia-sexism.

But-if you check out the profiles of the pod-people @ the marketing site that excretes this dinosaur drivel it starts to make sense. They're all aboard the vapid express. And yes. they all seem to be big on the multi-tasking.

The "about us" section claims they are keen to "listen and learn" so who knows?

[sheena]

Hadn't heard about it until this column, so checked out their web site. At least it's VQA, which means a token effort at quality, and all Niagara grapes. Better to invest in this than some of the shiteous "cellared in Canada" imported tanker wine at the same price. At least you're feeding an Ontario farmer.

And yes, you can buy it at the "Wine Rack".

[David Marniss]

This isn't sexism. It's marketing.

Men make up more of the wine-buying force. Men are attracted to woman. Sex cells....>_>

I don't think I have to spell it out...

This wasn't some malicious attempt at reducing woman to pieces of meat. It was just effective marketing.

[Kat]

@David Marniss:

Men buy more wine than women? 80% of the wine sold in the US is bought by women: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do;jsessionid=176770D02107EC8FC95F65A6E7A4BF92?contentType=Article&hdAction=lnkhtml&contentId=1636374

That's a two-year-old report, and it took me less than 10 seconds to find it on Google. Some other results indicated that men buy wine for the long term (ie; to cellar it), but women buy more wine for the short term (ie: to drink it shortly after buying it).

I can't imagine anyone cellaring the stuff in the ad, which must mean that the marketers did even less research than I just did. I know that if I showed up at a friend's house with a bottle of wine with that sort of label on it, I could expect to be teased about it for the rest of the night.

So what was that about effective marketing again?

[David Marniss]

Sells* I can't believe I didn't notice that..>_>

@Kat:

Then it's ineffective marketing. Either way, the point is, that it's not a malicious attempt at degrading woman. It's marketing. How does this company benefit from this depiction of woman? Unless to attract a particlular audience. A particular audience, that according to your statistics, don't buy wine as much.