Adam Maguire

Carmen, which is distributed and marketing in Ireland by Edward Dillon & Co, is the second-best-selling Chilean wine on the Irish market. Ireland is the brand’s most successful market in the world.

‘‘The young adults here are very open-minded, they’re more minded to try different things,” said Carmen managing director Eulogio Perez Cotapos. ‘‘Young people want to try different things; instead of paying €20 for a bottle of French wine, why not pay €10 for a bottle of Chilean wine, or Hungarian wine or Spanish wine.
‘‘New consumers are very important in the wine business.

“Depending on the market, traditional consumers of wine stick to the wine that they always drank. But new consumers don’t drink the same way.”

The advertising campaign to back the rebrand will use fine arts, such as classical music, to promote the product, under the slogan ‘‘you can’t talk about passion, you have to taste it.” The adverts will appear in newspapers and magazines from this month. A total of €250,000 is being spent on supporting the brand between now and Christmas. A larger campaign spanning 2007 will begin in the new year.

Both Carmen and Edward Dillon worked closely on the new campaign to ensure it appealed to European as well as South American markets.

‘‘Sometimes a campaign made in Chile could be uninteresting and perhaps says different things to Europe or the Middle East or Asia,” said Perez Cotapos. ‘‘We have developed a campaign that is a joint venture with our marketing team, Dillon’s marketing team as well as a Worldwide agency.”

‘‘Our target market would [also] be more unisex, we do feel that there’s always a danger of over-marketing to females because you then become rejected by males,” said Oonagh Gildea, marketing controller for Edward Dillon.

‘‘We would like to think our advertising shows a balance between the sexes. So it’s not the romantic side of passion, but more a love of life.”

Carmen has a total of four ranges, with prices ranging from just under €10 for the basic range (Classic) and under €40 for the higher end (Gold Reserve).

Ireland has become an increasingly important wine market in recent times, especially for New World sellers such as Chile. A study taken by the Wine Development Board of Ireland in September showed that Irish interest in wine is still growing, even when other European markets are contracting.