The Wine Marketer’s Radar

The Wine Marketer’s Radar curates marketing and business news from outside the wine industry, selected specifically for people working in wine brands, DTC, and trade. Each post highlights developments in technology, consumer behavior, retail strategy, media, and adjacent industries that are likely to influence how wine is bought, sold, and marketed. The goal is to help wine professionals stay informed about broader trends that may not show up in traditional wine media but are already shaping customer expectations and competitive landscapes.

Audiobooks, hot wings, and, yes, labubu. This week on the Radar.

The following is a lightly edited transcript from The Wine Marketer’s Radar, a weekly briefing that curates smart, non-wine industry campaigns with real implications for how wine brands market, sell, and show up in the world. This week’s edition spotlights three unexpected but incredibly captivating campaigns—from audiobooks to hot sauce interviews to fashion-sized tequila—that reveal…

Gen Z clichés. Coke cans with QR codes. Sydney Sweeney’s “great jeans.”

This is the gently edited transcript of the July 31 episode of The Wine Marketer’s Radar — a weekly series from 5forests that connects external marketing shifts to modern wine brand strategy. Three very different stories, but each a lesson for wine brands: why labels can mislead us, how to leverage packaging for growth, and…

Wine Marketing in Uncertain Times: Trust, Experience, and Gen Z Luxury

This is the gently edited transcript of the July 10 episode of The Wine Marketer’s Radar — a weekly series from 5forests that connects external marketing shifts to modern wine brand strategy. Tariffs, trust, and wine marketing in uncertain times We’re kicking off this week with a story from Marketing Dive that hits especially close…

Third Places, Nostalgia Marketing, and Why Strategy Still Beats Tactics

This article is a gently edited transcript from the June 29 episode of The Wine Marketer’s Radar, a weekly series from 5forests connecting big-picture marketing trends to wine brand strategy. Brand-owned coffee shops are the new flagship store First up, coffee — and the proliferation of brand-owned coffee shops. What does that have to do…

What SXSW London Taught Me About the Future of Wine Marketing

Hello and welcome back to The Wine Marketer’s Radar. I’ve been away for the past two weeks — first at the inaugural SXSW London, and then working with my team in the city on a very special project. (More on that soon — watch this space!) SXSW London was a powerful reminder that there’s a…

Graphic reads The Wine Marketers Radar Why Gen Z Trusts AI, Boards Need Youth, and Brands Need Visibility

Gen Z, AI, and the Leadership Gap

This article is a gently edited version of the latest episode of The Wine Marketer’s Radar—our weekly series connecting wine brands with the business and marketing trends that matter most. This week, we’re talking leadership, memory, marketing, and momentum. From boardrooms to your browser, we’ll explore the culture shifts that are shaping how consumers think,…

Loyalty, Trust, Attention, and Gen Z

This is the gently edited transcript from the May 19 episode of The Wine Marketer’s Radar, a weekly series by 5forests that connects global business trends to wine marketing strategy. This week on The Wine Marketer’s Radar, we’re looking at how smart brands are building loyalty, trust, and attention. From Pinterest’s role in Gen Z…

Graphic reads: the Wine Marketer's Radar, CRM 3.0, Abuelas & Anti-AI Campaigns, #SocialOffSocials and the Digital Video Surge

CRM 3.0, Anti-AI Campaigns, and the Digital Video Surge

Welcome back to The Wine Marketer’s Radar, where we decode the most important business, marketing, and consumer stories outside the wine world—and connect the dots to what they mean for your brand. This week, we’re talking about a shift in loyalty marketing, a breakout brand campaign that ditches AI in favor of abuelas, the continued…

Gen Z, Accessibility & the New Rules of Wine Discovery

In this episode of The Wine Marketer’s Radar, we unpack the big shifts every winery needs to see coming: accessibility lawsuits, collapsing loyalty, Gen Z discovery habits, and Google’s latest cookie backtrack. Let’s start with a story that we’ve been tracking for some time… Accessibility Overlays are Dead: Why Wineries Must Build Real Compliance Last…

Graphic reads: the Wine Marketer's Radar, Google’s ad monopoly, Meta’s might lose Insta, and the harsh truth about premiumization

Is Premiumization Still Smart for Wine Brands?

Before we get into this week’s stories, a quick plug for something I’m really proud of. We’ve just dropped a brand new guide: The Strategic Winery’s Guide to Modern Marketing. It’s 34 pages of clear, actionable advice built specifically for winery teams — not generic marketing BS, but a roadmap to help you connect campaigns…

Graphic reads The Wine Marketers Radar, Abandoned cart videos, TikTok travel inspo, better personalization & a phone case that flips when you say “cheers.”

Wine DTC Trends: Cart Videos, TikTok, Personalization & Play

Alright, this week we’ve got a lot to talk about — from AI-powered storytelling and social-first travel behavior to YouTube’s media dominance and what personalization actually looks like in 2025. Let’s dive in. Let’s start with a campaign that’s equal parts brilliant and borderline dystopian. Abandoned Nights by AB InBev AB InBev — the world’s…

Graphic reads: the Wine Marketer's Radar, Search is changing. Culture is misunderstood. Strategy is underrated. Social is overrated.

What Wine Brands Get Wrong About Strategy, Culture & Social

This week, I’m recording from Verona! What better place than one of the world’s largest wine fairs to look at a few trends and tensions that wine needs to know but may be missing—from consumer expectations around search and relevance to the misuse of “culture” in strategy to a growing disconnect between what marketers say…