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When Jackson Family Wines launched the "Really Goode Job" campaign last summer -- a nationwide search for a wine country lifestyle correspondent to promote Jackson's Murphy-Goode Winery brand -- the move was a big-time publicity winner and an unusual new-media undertaking in the oft-conservative wine industry.
"In terms of media impressions, oh man," said Mark Osmun, public relations director for Jackson Family Wines in Santa Rosa, Calif. "We got more than I anticipated, more than I've ever seen in any industry for any clients, and I've done PR for 30 years, 833 million media impressions."
The original job announcement read, "We at the Murphy-Goode Winery got to thinking about the new age of communications and we figured it was a pretty good thing. So to get going, we're looking for someone (maybe you) who really knows how to use Web 2.0 and Facebook and blogs and social media and YouTube and all sorts of good stuff like that -- to tell the world about our wines and the place where we live: the Sonoma County Wine Country."
Inspired by a similar contest that the Australian tourism board had concocted to promote the Great Barrier Reef, the "Really Goode" campaign went on to detail a few of the wine country-specific job requirements, including tasting hundreds of wines, meeting locals in the tasting room and filing reports via weekly blogs, photo diaries, Twitter, Facebook, video updates and ongoing media interviews.
The job was to last six months, pay $10,000 a month and include residence in a two-bedroom Victorian home in Healdsburg, Calif., where Murphy-Goode’s tasting room is also located.
From a pool of 2,000 candidates, 1,000 made the first cut and were invited to post application videos online. Judges whittled that group to 10 and then to one, Hardy Wallace, a laid-off tech worker from Atlanta and active wine blogger. He showed up first in line on that fateful first day in San Francisco when the rules were given out.
"I went at it like a man possessed, and I never worked harder in all my life," says Wallace. "I wanted to make as big a splash, do as much as I could to make sure no matter what happened, I committed."
Osmun believes he could do a made-for-TV movie of Wallace's life before the Really Goode Job. A movie would tell the tale of Wallace's 12 years spent as a technology sales and marketing exec for Kodak (150 days a year on the road), his development of the popular blog Dirty South Wine and his father's successful escape from the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on 9/11.
"That probably throws some perspective on you," noted Osmun. "That you really don't want to waste your time doing things that aren’t what you love." In addition to Wallace, Jackson Family Wines hired Really Goode Job runner-up Adam Beaugh, the former social media director for the governor of Texas, as Jackson's director of social media. Beaugh will oversee social media efforts for all of Jackson’s brands, which include not only Murphy-Goode but also Kendall-Jackson, Stonestreet, La Crema, Matanzas Creek, Cambria and a host of others. Jackson hired another of the top 10 candidates, Rocky Slaughter, as a social media consultant.
Wine market research in real time
"Social media is an advantage now and a necessity in the future," Wallace says. "Those who are getting in first are building relationships quickly and are able to learn from mistakes."
As it turned out, this breadth of knowledge and interest in topics other than wine, along with an ability to connect with a wide range of people over a wide range of topics, has served Wallace well in his six months as Murphy-Goode's brand ambassador.
"The things people respond to are usually the things you least suspect them to," he says.
As an example, he points to the blog photo he posted that made it look as though he had a ghost in his house. He titled the entry, "Is the Murphy-Goode house haunted?" Followers immediately and widely responded. He also boosted traffic with a video shot atop Alexander Mountain in Alexander Valley featuring friends and fellow Atlantans Kevin Gillespie and Eli Kirshtein, who were contending at the time on "Top Chef."
"The hard sell is the death of social media," Wallace offered. "People turn you off and you're no longer trusted. The people that I followed I always wanted to hear what they had to say about other stuff because it was from the other stuff they spoke about that showed me that if you like that, and that I like those two things too. It's kind of like picking friends."
Wallace was nothing if not prolific. Within a few months, his Murphy-Goode blog drew millions of page views. During his tenure, Wallace has posted some 5,700 social media messages, written 65 blog posts and shot 32 videos.
"Message-wise we wanted to demystify wine," Osmun said. "Social media goes everywhere, everyone can connect with it, so can wine. I've discovered that social media is about much more than putting a message out. It's about seeing what other people are saying, like market research in real time."
Not one to take a day off these last six months, the affable Wallace has been an employer's dream. He can barely sit still, his iPhone constantly abuzz with incoming tweets he wants to see and act on. If he's not sleeping, he's working, Christmas included.
"Twitter’s the most important thing, absolutely, in my eyes, where you communicate with people on a minute-to-minute basis," he says. "That immediate connection is where the value is at the moment."
Murphe-Goode's 'word of mouth on steroids'
Wallace has used Twitter and Facebook to set up dozens of personal private tastings too, pouring for people he met online in the Murphy-Goode tasting room. These visits often led to wine sales and wine club sign-ups.
"It's not just the sales you get," Wallace notes. "It's that these people first of all are active on social media, [so] 99 percent of the time as soon as they walk out that door they talk about Murphy-Goode. It's word-of-mouth on steroids."
Jackson Family Wines won't discuss specifics about how the Really Goode Job has affected its sales numbers but will say that the publicity has positively affected both sales and distribution. Tasting room staff have said that about 75 percent of people who walk into the tasting room mention the Really Goode Job campaign.
"You can more easily sell what's familiar," he says.
With his Really Goode Job ending Feb. 15, Wallace had decided to stay in wine country. He put his house in Atlanta up for sale, vowing to stay in California, job or no job. Fortunately for Wallace, he has just been offered a role in Jackson’s marketing department, the experiment to be continued.
Virginie Boone is a Sonoma Valley-based wine writer. She has reported on the Northern California wine scene for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and its affiliate food and wine magazine, Savor.
Photo of Hardy Wallace, courtesy of Jackson Family Wines
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