Lovely to see our friends at [yellow tail] in Marketing Week, on their ambition to become a cornerstone of the wine category. 

The most successful brands drive fame far beyond the category. Heinz isn’t just known in the context of ketchup. Apple isn’t just synonymous with mobile phones and McDonald’s has reach beyond fast-food.

Driving salience in the category is obviously important for any brand, but being known beyond is what can drive wider success both for the company and wider category.

That is the goal for Australian wine brand Yellow Tail, which is aiming to “become famous beyond the category”. Boasting the highest value sales and prompted awareness in the category, the brand is eyeing expansion.

In other categories, such as spirits, there are brands that dominate the category with significant proportions of market share, notes Kevin Chinn, marketing director at Casella Family Brands, which owns the Yellow Tail brand.

“We’ve got to make sure that there are big brands out there that are bringing people into the category.” 

Wine, on the other hand, is a category where there is something of a “glass ceiling” on market share, he notes, with lots of fragmented brands. Still wine has also been in decline as a category, on a per adult basis. The UK now drinks about 14% less wine than it did in 2000, according to IWSR.

“The category right now needs strong brands,” says Chinn.

As well as having the strongest spontaneous awareness of any brand in the category, Yellow Tail also has the highest household penetration. Going forward, the aim is to become the “cornerstone of the category”.

“We’ve got to make sure that there are big brands out there that are bringing people into the category against the backdrop of other options, like spirits,” Chinn says.

Yellow Tail was created by the Casella family, who looked at a wine market that was “very exclusive, very intimidating and pretty pretentious” and wanted to “democratise” the category, explains Yellow Tail managing director Simon Lawson.

Yellow Tail has ambitions beyond being the best-known brand in its category.

“We’ve got an ambition to become famous beyond the category and to become a true cornerstone of the wine category,” Chinn explains. “In order to do that, we need to move away from the functional. We need to start thinking far more about connecting more with our consumers.”

 developed with agency Isobel, celebrating the “Aussie spirit” of the brand. In the past, Yellow Tail had largely communicated fairly functionally through its communications, talking about the great taste of the wine, for instance.

 the brand has moved towards a more emotional positioning.

“When you create a more emotional connection with your customer base or your consumer base, you get a far more robust brand. They’re more resilient to challenges and, ultimately, they’ll stick with the brand through thick and thin,” Chinn says.

The campaign, launched in May, has already driven 170 million impressions reaching nearly 50% of adults, delivering Yellow Tail’s highest ad recall and brand awareness to date.

Another goal for the campaign is to engage a wider audience, as well as connecting with its core customer. The brand has already reached almost two-thirds (65%) of its core audience via the 

Yellow Tail’s core audience skews older, with over-50s making up the majority of its drinkers. This is true for the still wine category as a whole, with over-50s representing around 70% of the market.

The brand is looking to drive frequency and further progress with its core audience, while also reaching a newer group of drinkers. That isn’t necessarily young adults who are recently of legal drinking age, but rather an older group.

“Every part of the business is connected to the brand.”

“We’ve got to make sure that we’re recruiting the next wine-ready generation. We say wine-ready, because in their 20s people do drink wine, but actually it’s when they come to about 30 years plus when people really start to consider wine much more in their occasion base,” Chinn says.

The brand gives itself a rough 80:20 guide – to reach 80% core and 20% the younger “wine-ready” audience. Yellow Tail can still achieve broad reach of its target audience through TV, something that helps in a fragmented media landscape.

The brand has got to where it is by being distinctive, argues Chinn, and therefore the aim is to build on that.

“Our job going forward is to use those distinctive assets and dial up the personality of the brand with our consumers,” he says.

Yellow Tail is aiming to drive forward the wine category and take on that “cornerstone” role for its customers as well, notes Lawson.

“That partnership is so fundamentally important – both in terms of commercial relationship and commercial ambition – but also in terms of supply relationship and our ability to be always available,” he says.

“We’re working very hard on mental availability, we’ve got fantastic physical availability, and we need to keep building on that and bringing those two together.”

Now managing director at the Casella Family Brands business, Lawson spent time working in marketing at Diageo and so has a strong appreciation for the value brand can bring to a business.

“Every part of the business is connected to the brand,” he states.

As such, nurturing and growing the brand for the long-term is of paramount importance. Those working at the brand very much see their roles as being custodians with a responsibility to protect and grow Yellow Tail.

Lawson gives an example of this in practice. Wine duty rules recently changed, meaning rates increase for higher strength alcohol by volume (ABV). Some wine brands reacted to this by decreasing their ABV, something Yellow Tail was firm it would not do.

“That would be a complete and utter disaster, because Yellow Tail stands for great tasting, great value wines,” Lawson says.

Instead, the brand chose to communicate to consumers the quality of its product and earn its pricing position. This approach indicates the “ethos that lies behind the brand”, he explains.

“We will do the right things for the brand to make sure that it continues to stand for what made it famous in the first place,” Lawson adds.

[yellow tail] and becoming a cornerstone of the wine category

Dolly Parton gives pretty smart advice. For people, and for brands. Because if you want long-term success, not just short-term spikes, brands need to start with a crystal-clear sense of self and project from a solid brand foundation.

The smartest marketers know this, of course. You can't build lasting growth on shaky foundations, or paper over an outdated brand story with inauthentic or reactionary one-offs.

After all, brands are just like people. Some are authentic, confident and likeable. Some are not. They grow. They change. Some lose their way. And when they do, they need a reset.

A successful brand reset is exactly what Dolly preaches – finding absolute brand clarity, and then telling the world in ways that get noticed. Because in a world that's more distracted than ever, having a solid brand story, inside and out, is critical.

Because of all a business's assets, the brand has the most long-term value. As Jim Mullen said, "Factories burn down. Machinery wears out. Technology becomes obsolete. Brand loyalty is the only sound foundation on which to build."

But committing the time and energy to reset a brand properly isn't easy. It takes vision, creativity, tenacity and teamwork. And today, most marketing directors are putting out fires everywhere whilst trying to keep the day-to-day show on the road.

It means brands too often don't get the love and attention they deserve. Too many marketing campaigns today are built on trends and tactics, not on truth and a solid brand foundation.

But as some have proved, when you get it right, a brand reset can deliver disproportionate rewards.

And it doesn't always mean starting from scratch. For many, it's about rediscovery.

In the early 2000s, LEGO, once an unstoppable force in the toy industry, was on the verge of collapse. After a scattergun of quick-fix attempts, hoping something would stick, LEGO made the crucial decision to refocus on its brand, its roots, and why people actually loved LEGO in the first place.

The original magic of the brand was built on creative play and imagination. With this clarity and brand truth back in place, off-brand product extensions were easily ditched, and non-aligning trends were ignored. LEGO clearly understood that their brand wasn't the products that they sold, it was what they stood for.

LEGO went back to doing what it does best, focusing on simpler product sets, open-ended creativity, and storytelling. And from this solid brand platform, new growth opportunities naturally emerged, and a new brand ecosystem was born, across movies, games and partnerships. It led to a brand reset that has seen a remarkable financial turnaround for the LEGO business.

For other brands, a successful reset requires deliberate evolution.

For years, Oatly was a quiet milk alternative, designed for lactose intolerance. But then the brand pivoted in line with cultural trends. Crucially, Oatly picked an enemy - the dairy industry. Having something to kick against sharpened everything, giving the brand energy, attitude, and purpose: a new look and a new, irreverent brand voice.

The product didn't change, but the brand did. With new clarity, conviction, and cultural momentum, Oatly grew exponentially, eventually being valued at $10 billion when listed on the Nasdaq in 2021.

A niche Swedish health drink turned into a global powerhouse through strong brand thinking.

Sometimes, though, a brand does need more than rediscovery or evolution. Sometimes it needs full-blown reinvention.

Perhaps the most famous adland reset is Old Spice. A tired, ageing men's grooming brand that completely reinvented itself through humour, wit and modernity, attracting a whole new generation of fans.

Personal brands can also teach us plenty about the power of a reset. Miley Cyrus transformed from Disney's Hannah Montana into a rock' n' roll icon. David Beckham went from red-carded villain to British royalty. Both brand transformations were made with absolute clarity, confidence, and enormous success.

Which brings us back to Dolly Parton. The Queen of Country Music.

Country has been through its own brand reset in recent years. For decades, outside of Nashville, Country and Western (as it was once known) was deeply uncool. Many music listeners had an "anything but country" attitude.

But the genre has evolved and is now enjoying a considerable resurgence. Modern stars like Chris Stapleton and Luke Combs have transformed its image while staying true to its origins and soul. Whilst artists like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have helped blend Country's roots with other genres and influences, broadening its appeal.

That's the true power of a brand reset. Finding the truth. Sharpening it. And bringing it to life with creativity and originality. Or as Dolly said, finding out who you are. And doing it on purpose.

What Dolly Parton can teach brands

We officially became the Brand Reset Co. this week.

And to mark the moment, we hosted the Power of a Brand Reset event yesterday. 

Firstly, thanks to all our partners, clients, friends, and new friends, that came along. We hope you enjoyed it, and took plenty of insights away with you. 

Secondly, a huge thanks to our expert line up of brand speakers and panelists:

, CEO Glow London & Chair of The Marketing Academy’s Global Alumni Program

, Author of Rebrand Right and Founder of The Brand Strategy Academy

, Founder of Co:definery and Author of Market of One

The Power of a Brand Reset

Comedy is one of the finest tools advertisers have at their disposal. So here’s a nice film on the subject.

Tell me a Joke

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[yellow tail] and becoming a cornerstone of the wine category

What Dolly Parton can teach brands

The Power of a Brand Reset

Tell me a Joke >

More latest>

[yellow tail] and becoming a cornerstone of the wine category >

What Dolly Parton can teach brands >

The Power of a Brand Reset >

Tell me a Joke

[yellow tail] and becoming a cornerstone of the wine category

What Dolly Parton can teach brands

The Power of a Brand Reset