May 27, 2012
Raising a toast to a more competitive wine market
How can Systembolaget allow this type of bag in box packaging to be sold which clearly is designed to attract young women to consume wine of varied quality?
This box of Chardonnay and Viognier has a spout on the side but looks like a handbag. Should women walk around with their bag and casually spritz some wine into their glass at parties or perhaps on the way to parties?
What is next, Hello Kitty shaped Bag in Box? Blondinbella, Sweden’s most popular blogger who appeals to a younger female audience, was recently asked to withdraw Bag in Box advertisement banners from her website. Good sense, then why allow these products that target younger people to be sold through Systembolaget?
Change Lådvin 2010!
Mark
Change Lådvin 2010 campaign has got off to a flying start with over 1100 people visiting the campaign site yesterday and 350 fans on Facebook. Thank you!
Did you know that Swedes drank 4L of Bag in Box wine per second during the month of July 2009? Time for change or what?
Cheers
Mark
When I was a kid I dreamed of staying up all night and eating candy and watching TV. As a young adult I thought I would spend all my money on sports cars and expensive wine when I could afford it. When I finally could do these things I didn’t (well, except the expensive wine bit occasionally!).
Self control and moderation, that is why (in case you were asking the question).
In the past 9 years I have witnessed a blossoming of the Swedish wine culture and in 2004 we finally drank more wine than spirits. What has disappointed me is that the market share of bag in box wine has grown to an embarrassing level. Quantity over quality!
60% of all wine sold through Systembolaget is not in a bottle (bag in box and tetra pack) and the monopoly has the courage to give customers a financial incentive of often up to 30% to buy the same wine in a 3L plastic bag rather than in a bottle, even though they know the bottled wine will last longer and be better.
Over-consumption (creating the Swedish phenomenom of Bag Ladies, mid-50s women who drink too much bag in box wine) and the deterent it has on encouraging people to pair the wine with their food are just some of the negatives of Bag in Box wine that has caused me to start a new public awareness campaign to change consumers’ concept of what lådvin (box wine) is.
From Bag in Box to Bottles in Box, my quality version of Lådvin!
This year is an election year so today I have started Change Lådvin 2010 campaign to get consumers to understand the dangers of “bad” Lådvin and the positives of “good” quality Lådvin, bottles in box home delivered, by my company or any of our competitors.
Join me in the campaign, read more at www.lådvin.nu and if Swedish is not your strongest language, just tell your friends to check out the site anyway. Towards a better Swedish wine culture! Also on facebook .
My contribution to my adopted homeland!
cheers (in moderation)
Mark
The debate about the ethics of hiring someone to clean your home is one of the most culturally jarring to other Western World inhabitants. My parents both worked when I was young so we always had someone whom we paid to clean our house. Quite a few of these nice men and women worked for us for a many years and we knew that they worked with pride and it helped their own economy a great deal.
The countries these home cleaners came from over the 25 years I lived in Australia reflected the country’s changes in migration. In the ’60s and ’70s they hailed from Northern England, Hungary, Poland and Russia. In the ’80s they were from Vietnam and Cambodia. Their kids were offered our too-small clothes, toys, bicycle and one woman even sent my mother’s wedding dress to her sister in USSR for her wedding.
This was not charity, they provided a much valued service to our family and we knew that the money they earned helped them make a better life for their children in their newly adopted country.
If S is a party of the working class, why are they embarrassed that their leaders, who all earn enormous parliamentary salaries, do not spread around the wealth and employ some real hard workers (and do it legally with a little tax deduction to make it cheaper) to clean their homes? Should new immigrants be stripped of their pride and dignity by accepting government handouts or show their children that it is only by ones own hard work that a better life can be achieved?
It is politically acceptable to buy big country manor houses, reside in tax payer subsidised luxury Stockholm apartments and earn enormous pension payouts, but have someone who needs a job, take pride in doing so and clean your home is a moral afront.
This is where the cultural divide hits hard!
If as I hope, the current coalition is reelected in September, and they extend this tax deduction, perhaps they could add “home delivery of wine” as a domestic service so our customers could deduct the delivery fees from their taxes? That would help narrow the cultural divide somewhat!
Cheers
Mark
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