Times Media attempts to raise wine club profile

by Media Week, Media Week 23-Oct-07

Times Media has unveiled plans to boost its Sunday Times wine club with a new marketing campaign promoting dinner parties to younger readers.

The campaign will be rolled out in January with the slogan "dining in is
the new dining out", aimed at modernising the image of the trad-itional
British dinner party.

The Sunday Times Wine Club is the largest home distributor of wine in

the UK, but has plans to further increase its hold on the market.

Times Media digital publishing director Zach Leonard said the initiative
was expected to boost orders by a further 10% and open up the market to
a younger demographic.

Leonard said: "The good thing with the wine club is that it is cheap,
the wines are good and readers also get the convenience of home
delivery. There is huge potential for growth, but we have to make
door-to-door distribution - something that's seen as quite old-fashioned
- relevant to this audience."

He said that the campaign would primarily help to educate readers with
little wine experience. He added that a micro-site for the wine club,
run from The Times' website, was already in the pipeline.