Neil Pendock: September 2006
Author:
Neil Pendock
Published: 30 Oct 06
The most important lobby in the wine fraternity - the wine consuming public - was never polled for its opinion of transformation initiatives."Reorganization is a splendid method of producing the illusion o
f progress
whilst creating confusion, inefficiency and demoralization." This may be
a fake quote attributed to Petronius Arbiter - who may or may not have said it
in 256, 210, 201 or 100 BCE or in 30 or 65 AD depending on your source - but after
reading the founding document of the SA Wine Industry Council, these sentiments
ring a bell.
This 11-page dirigiste document describes the establishment of a new body for SA wine, the SA Wine Council, successor to the SA Wine & Brandy Company which was set up in 2002. The first change is the name: from company (implying a profit motive and a wine business paradigm) to council (implying a more political model).
The peoples' encyclopedia www.wikipedia.org defines a council as "a group of people who usually possess some powers of governance". Which should set alarm bells ringing for anyone who remembers the days of recent past when the gray shoes of KWV attempted to rule SA wine by quota and decree.
Appointing retired ANC bigwig Kader Asmal to the chair, rather than someone familiar with the business, like retired Richemont CEO Johann Rupert, confirms a political agenda.
While few would disagree that transformation is long overdue in the lilywhite world of SA wine, the most worrying feature of the document is that while "all relevant stakeholder groups" were supposedly involved in establishing SAWC, the most important one - SA consumers - are conspicuous by their absence.
Council CEO Johan van Rooyen notes "SAWC was formed as a result of inclusive and widespread consultation with, and input from, all relevant stakeholders and role players in the SA wine industry - from producers, cellars, the trade, civil society, labour, transformation bodies, SAWIT, municipalities, unions to the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs and the national Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC). Everyone was asked, and this is what they agreed to." Everyone, that is, except the punters who drink the stuff.
But there is some hope for the few remaining SA wine drinkers with the news that Wines of SA (Wosa), the exporters' association, are to be tasked with marketing SA wine to local consumers. While a cynic would argue that the current Wosa (annual) budget of R26 million has seen sales in the UK, the largest SA wine export market, fall 1.5% in the first four months of 2006 (AC Nielsen numbers), what kind of marketing spend is needed to convince SA consumers to switch from Jack Daniels to Jack & Knox, from alcopops to Agterkliphoogte? And perhaps more importantly, who will pay for it?
The current R2.2 million Wosa promotion on the London tube may come in useful once Gautrain starts rolling.
Although some kind of cultural translation may be needed to make an image of Proteas and a strapline "Diversity is in our Nature" convince Sandton sophisticates and Pretoria poppies that the message is "drink wine" rather than an ad for Keith Kirsten nurseries or a new alcopop made from fynbos. After all, if the largest SA wine corporate, Distell, has a global flagship brand called Amarula made from marula berries…
Petronius, described by Tacitus, the most important Roman historian, as "an absolute authority on questions of taste (arbiter elegantiae) in connection with the science of luxurious living" was the greatest satirist of his age and an intimate of Nero, the Roman emperor of fiddle fame. While he may not have penned the famous business consultant motto, he would have made an excellent wine councillor. "He spent his days in sleep, his nights in attending to his official duties or in amusement, by his dissolute life he had become as famous as other men by a life of energy, and he was regarded as no ordinary profligate, but as an accomplished voluptuary."
This 11-page dirigiste document describes the establishment of a new body for SA wine, the SA Wine Council, successor to the SA Wine & Brandy Company which was set up in 2002. The first change is the name: from company (implying a profit motive and a wine business paradigm) to council (implying a more political model).
The peoples' encyclopedia www.wikipedia.org defines a council as "a group of people who usually possess some powers of governance". Which should set alarm bells ringing for anyone who remembers the days of recent past when the gray shoes of KWV attempted to rule SA wine by quota and decree.
Appointing retired ANC bigwig Kader Asmal to the chair, rather than someone familiar with the business, like retired Richemont CEO Johann Rupert, confirms a political agenda.
While few would disagree that transformation is long overdue in the lilywhite world of SA wine, the most worrying feature of the document is that while "all relevant stakeholder groups" were supposedly involved in establishing SAWC, the most important one - SA consumers - are conspicuous by their absence.
Council CEO Johan van Rooyen notes "SAWC was formed as a result of inclusive and widespread consultation with, and input from, all relevant stakeholders and role players in the SA wine industry - from producers, cellars, the trade, civil society, labour, transformation bodies, SAWIT, municipalities, unions to the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs and the national Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC). Everyone was asked, and this is what they agreed to." Everyone, that is, except the punters who drink the stuff.
But there is some hope for the few remaining SA wine drinkers with the news that Wines of SA (Wosa), the exporters' association, are to be tasked with marketing SA wine to local consumers. While a cynic would argue that the current Wosa (annual) budget of R26 million has seen sales in the UK, the largest SA wine export market, fall 1.5% in the first four months of 2006 (AC Nielsen numbers), what kind of marketing spend is needed to convince SA consumers to switch from Jack Daniels to Jack & Knox, from alcopops to Agterkliphoogte? And perhaps more importantly, who will pay for it?
The current R2.2 million Wosa promotion on the London tube may come in useful once Gautrain starts rolling.
Although some kind of cultural translation may be needed to make an image of Proteas and a strapline "Diversity is in our Nature" convince Sandton sophisticates and Pretoria poppies that the message is "drink wine" rather than an ad for Keith Kirsten nurseries or a new alcopop made from fynbos. After all, if the largest SA wine corporate, Distell, has a global flagship brand called Amarula made from marula berries…
Petronius, described by Tacitus, the most important Roman historian, as "an absolute authority on questions of taste (arbiter elegantiae) in connection with the science of luxurious living" was the greatest satirist of his age and an intimate of Nero, the Roman emperor of fiddle fame. While he may not have penned the famous business consultant motto, he would have made an excellent wine councillor. "He spent his days in sleep, his nights in attending to his official duties or in amusement, by his dissolute life he had become as famous as other men by a life of energy, and he was regarded as no ordinary profligate, but as an accomplished voluptuary."
