Ep 37: How to Make Sure AI Recommends Your Wine or Spirits Brand

Like it or not, AI is now the gatekeeper between your wine or spirits brand and your consumer. So how do you ensure that when consumers go looking for a product, that you come up in the recommendations?

Felicity and Lulie do a deep dive into the evidence and surface with the answer as to why AI recommends some products and not others. And the news is good for small brands — structure your data properly, and AI might recommend you over big brands with huge digital footprints.

But should brands be using AI to create their marketing in the first place? Felicity and Lulie debate when AI works, when it produces obvious slop, and why AI can make consumers so angry that they start vandalising public advertising. Plus, Coca-Cola’s controversial AI Christmas ads, the possible return of the wine critic, Felicity’s war on German flies, and the critical question of whether being polite to your AI will save you when the robots rebel.

Meet Your Hosts:

Lulie Halstead founded and led international consumer research and strategy consultancy Wine Intelligence, and led it to a successful PE exit. Today she is a renowned global beverage alcohol and wine sector specialist, focused on consumer behaviour, strategy, retail and hospitality. An accomplished keynote speaker, she has spoken at more than 70 international events over the past 20 years.

Felicity Carter is an award-winning wine and drinks journalist, editor and content strategist. She led Meininger’s Wine Business International to become the world’s most must-read wine trade magazine, and was founding Executive Editor of The Drop/Pix, which the Wall Street Journal named one of the most trusted sources of wine information. A regular keynote speaker, she was named a 2024 Industry Leader by WineBusiness Monthly. Her Drinks Insider podcast won the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Award for Audio.

Chapters

• (00:00:04) - Introduction: AI Nicknames and Today's Question
• (00:02:10) - AI Extinction Risk and Perspective
• (00:03:33) - How We Use AI Personally
• (00:09:40) - Testing AI: Whiskey Recommendations
• (00:12:51) - Testing AI: Wine Recommendations and the Tesco Effect
• (00:15:11) - The Incumbency Problem and John Lewis Case Study
• (00:17:56) - AI vs Traditional SEO
• (00:24:35) - How the Drinks Trade Is Using AI
• (00:29:36) - Trust Gaps and AI Policy in Wine Businesses
• (00:31:21) - Debating AI Writing Quality
• (00:36:42) - Consumer Backlash Against AI Marketing
• (00:41:11) - Coca-Cola AI Ad Case Study
• (00:44:37) - When AI Marketing Works: The Sibling Ads Study
• (00:46:34) - Practical Tips: Getting Your Brand Surfaced in AI
• (00:53:38) - Third-Party Endorsements and Testing Your AI Visibility
• (00:57:13) - Final Thoughts: Democratization vs Incumbency
• (00:59:38) - Closing and Sign-off