Dr Vince O'Brien collaborates with the Barossa Grape and Wine Association to develop a program concept aimed at building the Barossa's brand equity and and direct to consumer (high margin sales) in China.  

The partnership of Colby Philips Advisory and the Barossa Grape and Wine Association achieved a successful grant application, the establishments of contracts for program delivery and the development and launch of the the Barossa WeChat, representing 12 wineries.

Outcomes to date include:

• Delivery of educational content to wineries on Chinese social media platforms along with branding requirements to engage Chinese markets;
• Development of branding frameworks to provide differentiation of offerings and brand positioning across all participants;
• Creation of a digital content brief and creative direction to animate brand stories;
• Generation of photography for use on the platform;
• Engagement of a key opinion leaders (KOL) to rate and promote wines;
• Design of the WeChat store and winery pages including translated content for these pages;
• Establishment of China import and pricing arrangements with winery participants and any existing importers, with either available stock in China being utilised or new stock being shipped;
• Extensive promotions of the store including:

                - the WeBarossa online store in WeChat official launch on 11 January

                - BGWA announcement to existing WeChat followers along with Beijing Wine Master contacts (10,000+ followers)

                - Wine Australia, the Department for Trade and Investment, and the South Australia Tourism Commission announcements

• With limited promotion allowed in China, and an inability to travel and deliver tradeshow based promotions, 2 articles were commissioned by a KOL and placed on the largest wine magazine in China, "WINE magzine" in their March and May issue. The article was called "Take a closer look at the famous South Australia's Wine Region: Barossa", it separated in two issues, covering 6 wineries per issue; and
• 5000+ unique visitors to the site and over $50,000 in sales to date. There was also 100K total impressions on social media across weibo, wechat RED and dianping.

Examples of the photography to capture the unique brand positioning are shown below – concepts capture brand personality and key messaging around unique offerings.