Candice Yang
Week 9

1. What has made Chateaux Margaux (CM) successful? What distinguishes CM’s product, customers and brand equity from that of competitors?
During 18th century, Chateaux Margaux experience a golden age because of strong demand for Bordeaux wines by the British;
In 1977, Andre Mentzelopouls re-introduced the chateau’s second wine and redefined the Pavillon Blanc white wine. His vision of paying attention to quality and innovation made CM outstanding.
After Corinne took over CM, she hired Pontallier to help her. Their combination was very successful. They came up with useful ideas leading to finer wines. They focused on increasing first-growth wine quality.
Distinguishes:
CM put less of production in the first and second wines and reduced yields overall in the vineyard in order to concentrated the flavors in the remaining grapes. Therefore CM got fewer bottles but with higher quality. While chateau relied on the channel to serve as the distribution and marketing arms for its wine, CM took note of demand shifts. It conducted the “ambassador” program in China to get close to customers in the big increasing market. The brand equity of CM is it offered high quality first-growth wines and good reputation for spectacular wines.

2. Assuming CM will go ahead with a third wine, whom should they target in their marketing efforts?
Core customers in traditional markets, like the US, UK, Japan and France. Because CM wines have become inaccessible to the consumers in traditional markets. The third wine could bring them back.

3. What should the third wine’s brand image be relative to CM’s first and second wines, including the name and packaging?
The third wine should use a name that signaled that this was the third wine. Therefore the high quality first and second wine will give the consumer confidence and a promise if regularity of