There’s been so much buzz about Tim Collin’s book Good To Great lately that I ended up buying a copy from Amazon.com to see what all of the fuss was about. To qualify for free shipping, I needed another book to pad my purchase cost, so, after reading some random book reviews, I chose Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.

I’m only a couple chapters into Blue Ocean Strategy, so I don’t have the familiarity with the book yet to describe in detail what it’s about. But, the tagline on the book cover does give some insight into what is discussed in the book. It reads: ”How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant.”

One interesting company highlighted in the book is Casella Wines, makers of the [yellow tail] wine brand. The book describes how Casella Wines found uncontested market space by focusing on three areas that traditional wine companies couldn’t. By creating wines that were easy to drink, easy to select in-store, and that were fun and adventurous to drink, Casella Wines could distinguish its [yellow tail] brand from other wines, both luxury and budget, and actually create a new wine market appealing to existing wine drinkers as well as ready-to-drink cocktail and beer drinkers.

I found this Blue Ocean example to be especially interesting because I drink [yellow tail] wine. Looking back to when I first started to drink wine, I realize that I was a perfect match for the market that Casella Wines was targetting. I was largely a beer and liquor drinker that wanted to drink wine for it’s added sophistication factor, but found it a difficult transition to make due to the more “refined” taste of wine. At the same time, I recall my attempts to purchase wine at the nearby liquor store to be frought with confusion and embarassment, as there were so many kinds of wine and brands available.

For some reason, I gravitated to [yellow tail], and specifically the [yellow tail] shiraz. I guess the “look” of the bottle agreed with me. The label was bright and simple and I sensed that the wine was targetted at a younger audience like myself, as the bottle was missing the stuffiness that I sensed more experienced wine drinkers expected.

I also enjoyed the taste of the wine compared to other red wines that I had sampled during those first few months. I could actually take a large sip without wincing afterwards. And even better, I drank a second glass, not because I wanted to force myself to get used to the taste, but because I enjoyed the taste. I had found my perfect wine.

Shortly thereafter, I actually felt the buzz around [yellow tail] pick up. Acquaintences would mention [yellow tail] in casual conversation, TV shows like The Shopping Bags would recommend the wine, and all the while I felt that I was a trend-setter because I was drinking the wine before all of this buzz began. But, after reading about Casella Wines in Blue Ocean Strategy, I realize that I was just one of the early conversion successes of a great marketting move by Casella Wines rather than a trend-setter.

Although I’m finding Blue Ocean Strategy to be pretty dry read at this point of the book, I’m forcing myself to continue trucking along. That said, the tidbit about Casella Wines has definitely raised my interest in the book and the topic of Blue Oceans as I now have a personal experience with one example of a successful Blue Ocean product, the [yellow tail] brand.

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1. Resurrecting this blog and broadening it’s focus