Beyond the glass: The power of the brand [Or, Why I'm Taking This Class]

I remember seeing the course listing for the quarter-long version of this class last year and thinking, "No way, I would have to rank this way too highly, it's one of those 'fad' classes where we just drink wine." Then, two threads of my world intersected in powerful ways: I needed to find an internship, and I visited Paris for the first time. All of last year, I spun in circles around the idea of marketing, knowing that I was customer-focused at my core. I started making lists of where I would want to work, and ended up with a list that included Bonobos, Away, Harry's, Warby Parker, LOLA, AllBirds, Glossier, MM LaFleur, and more. I couldn't articulate the core theme of my interests until I found articles explaining vertically integrated, direct-to-consumer, digitally native brands (see Andy Dunn's explanation here: https://medium.com/@dunn/digitally-native-vertical-brands-b26a26f2cf83). Suddenly I understood what so many others had already realized: a brand is more than just a label on a blouse or something you cultivate for yourself at work. Brands, when direct to consumer and vertically integrated, and perhaps especially when digitally native, are a powerful way to bring human empathy and commerce together. Brands turn a product into a personality, a company into a trusted friend. Brands are what elevate a product beyond its specs into something that people love. Okay, let's not forget Paris. In the heat of the internship search, I skipped class for a week in May (my girlfriend's parents were paying for our lodging, it was too good a chance to pass up!) to spend a week in Paris. My girlfriend, her brother, and his fiance spent a day in Eperney in Champagne, where I visited Moet -- one of if not the dominant champagne brand -- and Castellane, a much lesser known, more limited distribution vineyard. The whole group preferred Castellane's champagne to the famous Moet pours, yet any consumer would buy Moet over Castellane based on brand alone. I got to thinking about the power of how you position a product like champagne or wine in the consumer's head. Even comparing the two tours and welcome facilities -- Moet's shiny white marble tasting room and tour guides with crisp skirt suits and red lipstick made Castellane look like a barnyard establishment. I peppered our Castellane guide with questions about production, marketing, distribution, regulation and more (we were the only ones on the tour, unlike at Moet where we walked around with 20 other people). I realized the intricacies of champagne production, and the many different steps in the process where advantage could be won through right strategy. I became fascinated with this industry and the many levers that can be pulled within it. These two threads combined to help me realize the excitement of branding within the wine industry. I signed up for this class because I want to follow that interest while studying the challenges and opportunities that arise from the complexities of this industry.