{"id":23968,"date":"2011-08-31T00:13:08","date_gmt":"2011-08-30T22:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=23968"},"modified":"2011-09-18T18:43:22","modified_gmt":"2011-09-18T16:43:22","slug":"100-women-100-wines-frivolous-patronising-joke-wasted-tourism-spend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/cape-town\/100-women-100-wines-frivolous-patronising-joke-wasted-tourism-spend\/","title":{"rendered":"‘100 Women, 100 Wines’ “frivolous, patronising joke”, wasted tourism spend!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>We have previously written about Cape Town Tourism embracing the ‘100 Women 100 Wines’ competition, promoting it actively, and listing it in its ‘Strategic Plan’ as a means to ‘stimulate domestic tourism demand’.\u00a0\u00a0 The competition brought 100 women to the V&A Hotel in the Cape Town Waterfront\u00a0on Saturday for one day, hardly a major boost to domestic tourism, especially\u00a0as a number\u00a0of the\u00a0participants were from the Cape anyway! The wine industry has slated the event as ‘frivolous’,\u00a0‘patronising’, and a\u00a0‘joke’!<\/p>\n

Sceptical as\u00a0I tend to be when it\u00a0comes to the marketing activities of\u00a0Cape Town Tourism, I checked what information was available via Google, as we have not received information about this event as members of Cape Town Tourism.\u00a0 Not much\u00a0was written about the competition – only\u00a0two blogposts by organiser Clare “Mack” McKeon-McLoughlin (why does she not use her real surname?)\u00a0of Spill Blog,\u00a0a media release and two website posts\u00a0by\u00a0Cape Town Tourism, and three participant blogposts.\u00a0\u00a0 Sponsors of the competition were TOPS by Spar, Newmark Hotels (V&A Hotel), Destiny<\/strong> magazine (with a circulation of 26128 ‘black diamonds’), and Cape Town Tourism.\u00a0The aim of the competition was to generate “South Africa’s Best 100 Wines”<\/em> list, a ludicrous claim made by Cape Town Tourism in its media release.<\/p>\n

The competition premise was that 80% of women buy wines in supermarkets, thus making the brand decision, which is largely made on the basis of word of mouth recommendation by friends.\u00a0 On the basis of this statistic, Ms McKeon-McLoughlin devised a competition whereby 50 women could enter, by motivating by e-mail why they and a friend should be invited to be a ‘judge’ in a wine competition “where you choose and pick the wines that you prefer, wines that suit your palate and mood, and that you would\u00a0be more than happy to recommend to\u00a0a friend”.<\/em> The ‘judging’ took place at the V&A Hotel\u00a0in the Waterfront,\u00a0with participants having been flown to Cape Town (if not from the Cape); attending a lunch,\u00a0a cocktail\u00a0party,\u00a0and a gala dinner; participating in the ‘judging’; and spending the night in the V&A Hotel.\u00a0 About 30 % of the group of hundred women were from Cape Town and the Winelands, judging from\u00a0Twitter.\"\"<\/a> Cape Town Tourism refused to confirm the geographic breakdown.<\/p>\n

The patronising media release written by Cape Town Tourism stated that ‘this event will see women from different backgrounds being empowered as opinion leaders in the field of wine, and will set in motion the debunking of the myth that this right is reserved for the connoisseurs and the ‘bourgeois” <\/em>(who writes stuff like this?!).\u00a0 Their website post also\u00a0stated that the participants reflected the South African demographic profile, but the ‘black diamonds’ dominated.\u00a0 Cape Town Tourism appears to have forgotten that this country has four ‘demographics’, and not just two, as is visible from their delegate photograph. Categories in which wines were selected are ‘Girls Night Out’, ‘Celebration’, ‘Sunday Lunch’,\u00a0‘Braai drinking’, ‘The in-laws are coming’, The Big date – romance is in the air’, ‘Long lunch’, ‘Mid-week easy drinking’, Posh Present, ‘Baby it’s cold outside, ‘Bubbly’, and ‘Kiss and Make Up’.\u00a0\u00a0Ten wines were allocated per each of the ten categories, hardly a ‘judging’, and more of a classification of the 100 wines, information not provided as to how the original list of 100 was selected!\u00a0 The Cape Town Tourism media release quoted its CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold as follows: “The innovation of food and wine is an integral part of what makes Cape Town an inspirational city.\u00a0 We are looking forward to welcoming 100 women from across South Africa to Cape Town, and sharing our best wines and gourmet offerings with them.\u00a0 Winter is the perfect time to explore our wine culture and our partnership with 100 Women 100 Wines demonstrates our commitment to unlocking Cape Town’s superb winter offering to the domestic market. We look forward to celebrating this as an annual event”!<\/em> We do not believe that the event met the stated goal at all, as only the food of one hotel was experienced by the delegates, and mainly non-Cape Town wines were ‘judged’!<\/p>\n

We asked Cape Town Tourism CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold two questions about her organisation’s involvement in the event: what would\u00a0its benefit be for domestic tourism to Cape Town, and how much did Cape Town Tourism pay for sponsoring the event.\u00a0\u00a0This is the rude response we received on Twitter to our e-mails from Mrs Helmbold (she has not replied to our e-mails about the event):” For info on role in <\/em>#100women<\/em><\/span><\/a> event follow @<\/em>CapeTownTourism<\/em><\/span><\/a>‘s tweets. Event fund = R20 000″.<\/em><\/p>\n

We question Cape Town Tourism’s sponsorship of the event, which will have gone to the organisers.\u00a0 If Cape Town Tourism pays R20 000 for each of the 70 local and international events (we did not know that there are so many events in Cape Town in a year) it claims to support, it would be paying a precious R1,4 million,\u00a0which it could use to greater\u00a0benefit to attract more tourists to Cape Town\u00a0by means of\u00a0fewer, more fundamental events.\u00a0 It is unheard of for a tourism bureau to pay a sponsorship fee, it being usual for them to just endorse an event, to give it credibility.\u00a0 One wonders how Cape Town Tourism could have seen\u00a0so much benefit in the event that they paid for it, and had the time to handle the (poor) publicity for it!\u00a0It is clear that Cape Town Tourism has little knowledge of the wine industry, and blindly endorsed an event without credibility in the wine industry, and without any tourism benefit.\u00a0 No local media (radio or newspaper) covered the event.<\/p>\n

Mrs Helmbold did not attend the event at all, spending the weekend in Pringle Bay, and Cape Town Tourism’s PR Manager Skye Grove\u00a0appears to have only popped in at the sponsored\u00a0event. However, Mrs Helmbold was at great pains to Tweet about\u00a0the event on Saturday,\u00a0overstating the ‘benefits’ of the event for tourism to Cape Town as follows:<\/p>\n

*\u00a0 “#100women<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/span> is supported by <\/span>@CapeTownTourism<\/span><\/a><\/span> as part of focus on building winter brand, food\/wine tourism and domestic tourism”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0 “<\/em>#100women<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/a> is 1 of many good examples of how partnerships can be used to accomplish much through events without investing a lot of money”.<\/em><\/span><\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0 “<\/em>#100women<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/a> 100 wines event is 1 of more than 70 events supported by <\/em><\/span>@CapeTownTourism<\/em><\/span><\/a> and 1 of earmarked domestic tourism events of year”.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Cape Town Tourism\u00a0Tweeted ‘comments’ from delegates about how\u00a0good they felt about being in Cape Town, but these were prescheduled\u00a0via Tweetdeck, and do not appear to have been ‘live’ comments from delegates, making one question their credibility.\u00a0In its website post at the conclusion of the event, Cape Town Tourism wrote ‘testimonial’ comments about Cape Town, quoting senior executives who apparently had never been to Cape Town before.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Some ‘justification’ Tweets were sent by them during the weekend event:<\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0 “<\/em>#100women<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/a> 100 wines event proving that South African women love their friends, their wine, their food…. and Cape Town” (<\/em>no delegate\u00a0Tweets\u00a0proved this!)<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/em> “City Press & Sunday Times at <\/span><\/em>#100women<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/a> event – this is how we do business. Unlocking CapeTown’s stories through national & int<\/em> (sic) media” (<\/em>City Press<\/strong> sent only a Trainee Journalist, and the Sunday Times <\/strong>was represented by their wine writer Neil Pendock, who in fact was one of the organisers!\u00a0 There were no international media representatives).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0 “We are loving the vibe at <\/span><\/em>#100women<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/a> 100wines. Women from all over SA falling in love with the Mother City and our food and wine offering”<\/em> (not supported by delegate Tweets)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0 “Proud partners with <\/span><\/em>@NewmarkHotels<\/em><\/span><\/a>, <\/em><\/span>@1time_Airline<\/em><\/span><\/a> & Tops at Spar of <\/em><\/span>#100women<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/a>100 wines. All about telling CapeTown’s food & wine stories”<\/em> (no such ‘stories’ have been seen in the media!).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Pendock is known to be a good friend of Mrs McKeon-McLoughlin, and\u00a0wrote about the event twice on his <\/span>The Times <\/span><\/strong>‘Pendock Uncorked’<\/em> blog in two days. He was the scorer at a previous round ‘judging’ event, as well as at\u00a0the weekend event, at which the list of 100 wines was finalised.\u00a0 He ‘shyly’ discloses in his first blogpost that he <\/span>‘advised 100 Women 100 Wines on selection of wines for the event’<\/span><\/em>, vastly understating his involvement, and he makes no disclosure of his involvement in the second blogpost.\u00a0 He praises\u00a0 the <\/span>‘seminal’<\/span><\/em> idea of the<\/span> ‘revolutionary’ <\/span><\/em>competition (these two descriptions seem a gross exaggeration), alliteratingly (as he is fond to do) writing that “Mack”<\/em> (whose real surname is known to him) gathered <\/span>‘ordinary women’<\/span><\/em> (not ordinary at all, from the descriptions of their careers) from <\/span>‘Pretoria, Porterville and Putsonderwater’ <\/span><\/em>(maybe his creativity to alliterate town\/city names with Johannesburg and Stellenbosch was limited!).\u00a0 Pendock gives sponsors 1Time Airlines, V&A Hotel, Destiny <\/strong>magazine, and ‘Spar’ (not getting its bottle store brand correct) a punt\u00a0in his blogpost, but does\u00a0not mention sponsor Cape Town Tourism nor brand ‘Cape Town’ in his blogpost at all!\u00a0Pendock is known as a very critical wine writer, and would have slated such a frivolous competition, had he not been involved in its organisation, especially as the wines were ‘judged’ sighted\u00a0at the weekend event, his biggest criticism of Platter judging.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Twitter only 55 Tweets were generated by 15 Twitterers over the two days, a poor tally.\u00a0The ‘black diamond’ Destiny<\/strong> delegates from Johannesburg appear to not have embraced Twitter yet. \u00a0Newmark Hotels probably received the best benefit of the exposure on\u00a0Twitter, with some Tweets praising its V&A Hotel.\u00a0 The sponsors airline 1-Time, Cape Town Tourism, and Destiny,\u00a0and TOPS at Spar came off worst, in receiving no acknowledgement at all from the delegates!\u00a0\u00a0 Only\u00a0eight wines out of the 100 tasted and tested, being Graham Beck MCC, Stellenrust Timeless, Warwick The First Lady, Nederburg Riesling, JC le Roux, Miss Molly, Le Bonheur Sauvignon Blanc, and De Morgenzon Sauvignon Blanc, received Twitter mentions during the tasting. Distell\u00a0 sponsored the wines for the dinner, and the Fleur du\u00a0 Cap wines appeared to receive more favourable comments on Twitter than did the wines in the 100 Wines testing collection!<\/p>\n

Nigel Cattermole, fearless wine-knowledgeable owner of Wine\u00a0@ the Mill, laughed about the event, and called it\u00a0patronising and a joke.\u00a0 He said that most of the 100 wines in the collection were bulk mass-produced wines, being ‘mediocre to poor’<\/em>.\u00a0 ‘There is no providence in these wines’,<\/em> he added.<\/p>\n

The ‘100 Women 100 Wines’ competition is a farce in more ways than one: The results, in generating a ‘Top 100 best wine list for women’<\/em>,\u00a0will hardly be an accolade winemakers would strive to achieve, not having any credibility.\u00a0 Cape Town Tourism’s involvement in the competition is questioned, given that its energy should be focused on attracting as many tourists to Cape Town as possible, a group of 100 (of which many\u00a0were from Cape Town or Stellenbosch\u00a0anyway) making only a negligible\u00a0 impact\u00a0on tourism in our city, if any at all, given that the delegates stayed at\u00a0the V&A Hotel, had all their meals and drinks there, and all activities took place at the hotel,\u00a0meaning that there was little spend by them in the rest of the V&A or in Cape Town.\u00a0The association with the competition is a serious dent to the credibility of Cape Town Tourism, in supporting a competition that is patronising to women; is frivolous and lacking credibility in its results; was poorly marketed; benefits the Winelands more than Cape Town; does not meet its intended goal of growing ‘domestic\u00a0& intl<\/em> (sic) markets’;<\/em> does not meet the goal of ‘building winter brand, food\/wine tourism and domestic tourism’,<\/em> and makes no\u00a0contribution in addressing the tourism crisis in Cape Town!<\/p>\n

POSTSCRIPT 31\/8<\/strong>: Cape Town Tourism has\u00a0sent us\u00a0a\u00a0comment in reaction to this blogpost, in the\u00a0name of ‘Thandiwe’, with a false e-mail address thandimotse@yahoo.com<\/a>, in defence of Cape Town Tourism’s sponsorship of the ‘100 Women 100 Wines’ event, using similar yet contradictory information contained in its Media blogpost and a Tweet about the event.\u00a0 A Google search confirmed that the only reference to ‘Thandiwe Motse’\u00a0is from two mentions\u00a0on the\u00a0Cape Town Tourism website.\u00a0 We have not allowed the false comment, and we are surprised that\u00a0Cape Town Tourism’s PR department\u00a0would stoop so low in trying to justify their involvement.<\/p>\n

POSTSCRIPT 1\/9:<\/strong> The latest Spill blogpost brags about the success of the ‘100 Women 100 Wines’ event, quoting\u00a0all feedback it has received on Twitter and its blog, even from its co-organiser ‘Dr Neil Pendock’!\u00a0\u00a0Interestingly, the blogpost refers to ‘Thandiwe Moitse’, with a different spelling of the surname compared to the way Cape Town Tourism spells it.\u00a0\u00a0 There are no Google entries for this business executive,\u00a0on either spellings of her surname!\u00a0 The Cape Town Tourism spelling in\u00a0its Tweets and media blogpost is the same as the spelling\u00a0in the Comments posted to this blogpost!<\/p>\n

POSTSCRIPT 3\/9:<\/strong> A ‘judge’ of the first stage of the event, who was given a voucher for a meal at Societi Bistro by the organisers, and who expressed her dissatisfaction on Twitter with the poor quality of the meal and the service, was called by Mrs McKeon-McLoughlin and asked to remove her Tweet, as she had promised Societi Bistro that they would receive good publicity if the restaurant donated\u00a0the\u00a0vouchers!<\/p>\n

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com<\/a> Twitter:@WhaleCottage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have previously written about Cape Town Tourism embracing the ‘100 Women 100 Wines’ competition, promoting it actively, and listing it in its ‘Strategic Plan’ as a means to ‘stimulate domestic tourism demand’.\u00a0\u00a0 The competition brought 100 women to the V&A Hotel in the Cape Town Waterfront\u00a0on Saturday for one day, hardly a major boost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[3,124,22,21],"tags":[12566,13048,13098,32366,85,32378,13049,7488,10244,12797,1480,412,30,287,157,226,2827,12487,340,6579,188,399,497,3626,12497,4512,8739,2864,12798,4822,8659,502,1999,13047,13050,12510,11835,1587,116,3598,482,32373,365,13099],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t