Constellation Brands, a leading premium wine company, invests 25 percent of its wine and spirits marketing budget on digital, with a particular focus on mobile given that wine drinkers tend to be heavy users of these devices.

A 200 percent increase has been observed in digital engagement, and while in the past, the company leveraged third-party apps such as Hello Vino and Shopkick, more recently it has been focused on tracking mobile ads back to incremental sales. 

 ?We have really made a conscious effort over the last four years to move more towards digital," Chris Fehrnstrom, chief marketing officer of the wine and spirits division at Constellation Brands. "Unlike many other CPG categories we?ve made a more cognizant effort to engage in mobile whether it be through advertising or partnership on an application front.

?The wine category overall is unique in that as much as you think that wine is ubiquitous, only one-third of U.S. adults consume wine," he said. "And so we?ve found with digital and specifically with mobile that we?re able to really target the wine consumer.?
 
Out of 80 million digital wine drinkers, 45 percent are more likely to use mobile devices compared to the average consumer, per Mr. Fehrnstrom. They also spend more time on digital media than offline media, totaling 22 hours each week and talk about wine online 63 times every minute.
 
In an interview with Mobile Marketer, the executive discusses how mobile fits into Constellation Brands and how it is helping the company reach an established wine consumer user base.
 
How are your partnerships with key mobile apps leveraging purchase-based targeting in retail sales and online engagement?
Firstly, we?ve partnered with Hello Vino, an app that has 1.5 million downloads and caters specifically to the wine consumer. You won?t download that app unless you are interested in wine; for example consumers looking for advice on purchasing wine for a special occasion, or who want recommendations based on historical preferences will access this app which acts as a personal assistant, and saves purchases. Through this, we can deliver messages to a targeted group we know is interested.
 
We?re also now in the phase where we?re using a geo-targeted push program, which allows us to have push notifications sent to a target blind consumer reached specifically based on their likes. We can tap into them through these notifications or advertisements and guide them to a near store that provides an opportunity for the recipient to purchase the wine we suggested to them.
 
We?ve leveraged the Shopkick app to drive brand awareness and product purchase while consumers are in the store. Shopkick has a partnership with Target who is one of our most valuable accounts, and we?ve driven 650 thousand product scans over three campaigns deployed with them. We know people are engaged with the app and it?s driving them to scan our products. Based on metrics we also know how many are going in to specifically buy our products.
 
What is Constellation Brands doing that is new or different this year? 
What we have really been focused on the last year and a half is working with Dunnhumby, who partners with media and advertising companies on data logics to help us understand when we advertise what the actual incremental sales boosts that?s occurring is. They have the ability to look at a control household based on purchase behavior.
 
We?re also doing something regarding Facebook to see if fans really generate more revenue than non- fans and non-wine drinkers through a three-way-match between Facebook fans, to stores, to point of purchase. It?s really exciting as a marketer to see if your digital efforts are really impacting in sales lift.
 
What are some of the learnings or results you?ve seen from mobile thus far?
Because of the category were in, mobile for us is the bridge between the digital world and the physical world. We know consumers in our space are using their mobile devices more and more in store to make decisions.
 
About 60 percent of the purchase decision is made in store and we know a little over 50 percent of shoppers use tech while they are shopping. So the ability to have this geo-targeted ability at the point of purchase is crucial.
 
We?re excited to explore with some partners beacon technology as well.
 
What have been your biggest challenges and successes in the mobile field?
That?s a great question. The biggest challenge we have is that there?s so many different opportunities to explore and what we?ve been finding is that we are the first to experiment in a certain realm, so it?s deciding where to place your bets and where to take a more measured approach.
 
While it?s so exciting to be in marketing because of the opportunities on the digital side, really trying to decide where to dive in is a challenge.
 
Conversely, we have seen great success with the social media campaigns we have engaged in as well as certain campaigns that are geared towards these partnership apps we?ve developed.
 
There are 26 different brands that have Facebook pages with around 3.5 million fans across these pages. The Arbor Mist Facebook community generated a $1.3 million lift in sales among its Facebook fans as compared to non Arbor Mist Facebook fans ? which is 6 times the investment made.
 
We continue to see the evidence of this purchasing trend with fans, as 78 percent of consumers say social media brand posts influence their in-store purchase behavior.

Final Take:
Michelle is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York