A new web presence to take Yealands Wine Group brands to the world

Yealands Wine Group has unveiled a series of new look websites for its three key brands, as part of a broader digital brand strategy.

The new digital strategy follows the merger of Yealands Estate with Ager Sectus Wine Estates in September 2011; the combined entity is one of the largest privately-owned wine companies in New Zealand. The portfolio includes Yealands Estate, Crossroads Wines and The Crossings.

“Following the merger last year we reviewed the digital presence of all our brands and decided that we needed to rebuild the sites to better reflect the brand identity. This also gave us an opportunity to update our websites to ensure that they were compatible with a range of platforms and appealing for modern web users,” says Angela Flynn, Yealands Wine Group Brand Manager.

Yealands Wine Group has an international reach of 67 international markets. To reflect the international customer base the websites have been designed with a global perspective. Visitors to the sites can customise the content by location to ensure it is relevant to their market. The sites have also been built to accommodate viewing across a range of screen sizes and browsers.

“The new websites are scalable and built with international customers in mind. The sites will form the basis of a programme of digital activity, which will help us to take the Yealands Wine Group brands to the world,” says Angela Flynn.

Spitfire, the Auckland based digital agency that created the websites, says their brief was to innovate and create work worthy of a global audience.

“Using technology and smarts Yealands Wine Group now has a web presence that will enable it to compete with some of the best-known global brands, without a global budget,” says Perry Cornish, Spitfire Strategy Director.

The next phase of the digital programme for Yealands Wine Group is the roll-out of QR codes, which will be used on the back labels of all wines from the 2012 vintage.

“We wanted to create a brand experience for our customers around the world. The QR codes will direct customers to a brand specific mobile site, containing food and wine matches, tasting notes and a video which will transport them to our vineyards, creating a sense of place and a tangible connection with the wine,” says Ms Flynn.

The mobile sites will go live in six weeks, to coincide with the release of the new vintages.