A shouting moped driver doesn't communicate "luxury"

What a man on a moped shouting in Portuguese taught me about luxury and wine communications. And a forgotten trick that makes every brand seem luxurious.

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When you spend a lot of money on wine, you don’t expect a man on a moped to shout at you in Portuguese. Or at least I don’t. And certainly not in a leafy corner of South West London, waiting for a delivery from one of the country’s top wine merchants.

First impressions matter. So does the last one.

Photo by Rowan Freeman on Unsplash

I was expecting a delivery of three bottles of wine for a tasting. They were not cheap, but they were late. Even so, it was when they came that the trouble really began. The gentleman making the delivery was in a state of some distress. To this day I don’t know why. Largely because he only spoke Portuguese. He arrived on a moped with the wines and initially he handed them to me. But then tried to take them back. I resisted. Confusion reigned. I tried using Google Translate to see if there was some paperwork, or a thing to sign. That didn’t seem to help. Neighbours started to stare. We had a standoff for a few minutes, when eventually he relented. And scootered off.

Always be communicating

My chum Marc Ross is a geopolitical communications strategist. He regularly cites the line “always be communicating”. It’s not always in words.

We ‘re always communicating. In the way we do things, as much as the things we say. Sometimes more so. If you’re a luxury wine company, you’re communicating through the dodgy London courier company you hired on the fly, every bit as much as in the sponsored spread you just had in a broadsheet newspaper.

Not long after the shouty Portuguese man (possibly Brazilian… I’m not that hot on accents) the other bottles for the tasting arrived.

These came in a van with the logo of the merchant on the side, and were delivered by a man wearing a tie. Rather than handing me a crumpled cardboard case with clinking bottles, he gave me a three-bottle branded bag with inserts to prevent jangling. I signed the little electronic pad, and we bid each other good day. Calmly.

The wines delivered by the man from Hedonism were more expensive than those that had come earlier. But who cares. If you’re the sort of person who spends £100 on a bottle of wine (I’m not, they were for a tasting) then you’ll pay £105 to have them delivered by a man in a tie who doesn’t shout at you in Portuguese.

Small changes can have big impacts. Even in your delivery paperwork. But you can transform it all in a simple, but forgotten way. And dramatically change the way people feel about your brand.