Champagne and Priorities

 Yes, and advertising dollars apparently come from trees.

An enormous advertisement in downtown San Francisco has recently been emblazoned on the side of a building, no doubt in preparation for this season of celebratory toasts and cork popping, in the hopes of raising awareness about champagne. Specifically, it's an effort by an organization called the Office of Champagne USA, acting on behalf of champagne producers to raise awareness about a major problem challenging French winemakers. There are confusing legal allowances here in the US that permit sparkling wines to be labeled as "champagne" even if their only relation to the eponymous region in northern France is the hopeful optimism of the marketer. In other words, this organization has been founded to defend the namesake of real champagne, in the hopes of acquiring the regionally-protected nomenclature rights granted to champagne in Europe. 


I believe in this the purpose behind this champagne campaign, because I feel it's important to maintain Champagne (the region)'s significance in the minds of consumers; there are clear historical and cultural differences between champagne (the wine) and prosecco or sekt or espumante or cava or asti, or any one of the other forms of sparkling wines. If the names become legally meaningless, then consumers will know less about what they're buying, brands and labels will lose their meaning, and the market value of champagne will plummet, harming winemakers in France and making the consumer experience more difficult for everyone who buys wine. 


But this billboard makes me smack my forehead. I'm really flabbergasted at such a waste of money.



The billboard says, "Champagne only comes from Champagne. Unmask the truth at www.champagne.us"


Think about that statement. Let's try to look at this objectively, stepping back from the point of view of a marketing schill for a champagne trade organization, or even from the perspective of someone reading a food blog. This ad isn't in a highly-targeted wine magazine, or at a table at a wine festival. It's on a street corner in a metropolitan area, near a bridge underpass full of abandoned shopping carts. "Champagne only comes from Champagne", it says, next to a bottle of American Champagne wearing a mask. Imagine you're in the prime target audience for whom this ad was intended; you're someone who hasn't the foggiest notion that the word champagne has any meaning past "bubbly wine". The people at Office of Champange USA want to let you know that this word should only be used in reference to bottles from a small part of France. 

Champagne (bubbly wine) is only from Champagne (bubbly wine?). What? 

Wait, "from Champagne".. so, Champagne makes champagne? Okay, so bubbly wine comes from other Champagnes. That's weird. Wait - there's a mask. Bottles wearing masks. What??

And the audience walks on down the street, confused as ever.


If you're the kind of person who already knows that Champagne is both a product and a region, you're already starting off as a rarity. And chances are, you already know from dinner party conversations that similar wines from elsewhere in the world should be called "sparkling wine". The mask makes sense, the ad makes sense, but you're not learning anything new. Message received, no knowledge gained, money completely wasted.



But if you're the average billboard reader who doesn't know about this mysterious double meaning, you represent the hope of achievement of Office of Champagne USA's goals. Unfortunately, to you, this ad makes no sense whatsoever. A bottle wearing a mask - what on earth is that supposed to convey to someone who hasn't already spent time contemplating this issue? Wine industry reps are well familiar with the idea that a dilution of the word "champagne" represents an unjust and undeserved association with the real thing, and a duplicity akin to a deceptive disguise. A useful image would be perhaps one of France, or a photo of a French countryside highway sign identifying the word Champagne as something more than a generic term. 


I'm getting pedantic here, but honestly, it riles me up to see good money, earned by people producing a product that I believe in and enjoy and want to see respected, floundered on a piece of marketing so ill-informed and wasteful. 


Champagne only comes from Champagne - this is both true and important to remember. Don't spend your money on a bottle from somewhere else that capitalizes on the word's cachet. But please, just as importantly, don't spend your money on billboards if you don't know how to use the medium.