Wine marketing boards establish new ’Wines of France’ brand name

he French wine industry will be using a new brand name: Wines of France. Registered in the summer of 2021 by the national committee for appellation and PGI wines (CNIV), the umbrella brand comes with a logo in the shape of a hexagon with a beating heart positioned on a raised bottle. The strapline is in English: “One country, a world of tastes”, underscoring its global ambitions. The new promotional tool has its own brand platform and focuses on the art of surprise, where artisanal expertise meets a left-field approach to wine, explains CNIV deputy director Dorothée Franjus-Guigues.

The brand continues on from the overarching marketing activities, conducted in the past via intervention agency FranceAgriMer, for the industry across-the-board in non-EU markets. With the dedicated funds now phased out, CNIV conducted research to examine the relevance of a nationwide communications strategy in foreign markets. The result was that “interest in promoting France is strong in a certain number of third countries”, comments Franjus-Guigues, adding that Wines of France is designed to “support regional campaigns with a French campaign”, particularly “in countries where France is the only gateway for wine (as knowledge of wine regions is too scant) or in countries where the concept of country is the main/only key to understanding (for example where different alphabets are used)”.

Implementation of the new marketing resource now needs to be formalised within the CNIV. The continued objective is to roll out general marketing activities to make each market aware of French ‘markers’. “Synergies are defined between the values epitomised by France as a country and those of the wine industry, whilst the integrity of regional specifics is ensured by the individual marketing boards”, concludes Franjus-Guigues.