Vinomofo is one of Australia’s true entrepreneurial success stories.
With global expansion plans being rolled out as we speak, owners Andre Eikmeier and Justin Dry have an interesting story to tell.
“We’re very much learning and adjusting as we go, which is the key to keeping a fast-moving company on track — I feel,” Eikmeier told Inside FMCG.
“We launched in New Zealand in August, which is going great, and [we launched in] Singapore on December 6th. The US is scheduled for mid-2017.
“We’re moving very fast, and that puts a lot of pressure on the whole team, but it’s exciting to be growing our tribe around the world.”
Inside FMCG spoke to Eikmeier about success, hardships and Vinomofo’s largest marketing campaign to date.
Inside FMCG: How did you develop the concept behind Vinomofo?
Andre Eimeier: My brother-in-law Justin and I started Vinomofo in a garage in 2011.
We were wine communicators and we were doing a lot of video [content], discovering and recommending wines to our small audience. [We had] been trying to make that previous business work for over [four] years, but we just didn’t have the revenue streams. Then after Christmas, Justin came in to the office and we were talking about how we could turn it around, and Justin had this idea that maybe we could launch a wine deals site. I thought it was a terrible idea. But thankfully, we explored how we might be able to do it in a cool way, with authenticity and integrity.
We launched Vinomofo in April 2011 and [we] haven’t looked back since.
Inside FMCG: What’s your key to success?
Right from the beginning, we promised our “tribe” of mofos that we would only sell wines we loved. So, we curate every wine we sell. Less than 5 per cent of wines make it past our tasting bench. And because we focus our buying on a smaller range, we buy well on each wine — and so we offer our members epic deals on all our wines.
But ultimately, it’s what we stand for as a brand that has been [the] key to our success. We’ve made wine fun, approachable and accessible. We’re human, in everything we do — and we deliver a customer experience that is unparalleled because we care more. That’s what people love.
Inside FMCG: What obstacles have you encountered along the way?
Many! Three days before we launched what was meant to be “Vinomojo”, we received a Cease and Desist letter from a trademark attorney, representing a wine company who had a wine called “Mojo”.
The name “Vinomofo” started as a joke, as in “the mother f**kers stopping us from launching”, but it stuck.
A few months later we had big distributors and the two retail giants putting pressure on wine producers not to supply us. We ended up having to partner with a large online retailer to achieve the scale we needed to be able to be a valuable alternative channel for those producers. Fifteen months later, we bought the whole company back.
Inside FMCG: The Decide campaign is by far the largest campaign you have done so far and $4.5 million has been allotted on the brand’s marketing campaigns. What results have you seen so far?
The campaign’s going well. The earlier stages are focused on building brand awareness, which we’re seeing, both measured and anecdotally — we want Vinomofo to be a household name.
But the real test is always new customers. It’s too early to be certain we’ll hit our targets with this campaign, but early signs are good. We love what the campaign is about. We love the mix of standing for something and bringing some humour to it. We wanted the campaign to link very clearly to not only our brand, but what we do — wine. And I think it does that beautifully. We wanted to make a “Superbowl ad” — the kind of ad that gets people talking.
Inside FMCG: What do you think makes your company unique compared to other online retailers?
We’re a tribe of wine lovers, half a million mofo members. We’re not a “browsing site”. We have a really tightly curated range, with only wines we love, and by far the best pricing on those wines in the market. But it’s our human brand and tone that is unique, I think. We’re very real [and] we put all our people at the front of our brand.
