Venus, Mars and wine

The words "female-focused marketing" are wonderfully incendiary - at least to some women and a smaller number of men who want to believe that males and females come from the same planet. The very notion of targeting one sex rather than the other is thought to be demeaning and likely to lead to further gender stereotyping. I'm not going to go into that argument here because I'll be posting a full-on debate about it between Felicity Carter of Meininger's and myself in a few weeks. 

In the meantime, here's a first class example of a well-handled, female-focused product. Chloe is best known as a high-end fashion brand that belongs to LVMH. Now the canny Wine Group has launched a wine under that name, using packaging that owes a fortune to the worlds of fashion and cosmetics. 

My friend and business partner, Catherine Monahan, who sent me the picture above tells me that it is selling well in the US at at a premium price of $15.99. That would place it above the £12 mark in the UK so the likelihood of it crossing the Atlantic any time soon is probably small. Which is a bit of a pity because I can imagine the combination of negative reactions it will get from wine traditionalists who'll entirely miss the point by asking where the wine comes from and the grape it's made from (when did anyone bother to ask those kinds of questions about a fashion item?) and from feminists who'll complain of being patronised. Meanwhile, I reckon the Wine Group will be laughing all the way to the bank.