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Candid Wines , Damien Casten
“I cannot say enough about the value of this event for the launch of my business. A month ago, a Google search for Candid Wines turned up nothing related to my company.
Today, thanks to guerilla tactics, people find us on the web and call to ask about our wine events! All this attention has cost me nothing but my time and energy. I can not imagine that we would have generated such a flying start if I had not attended the SCORE seminar.”
How did Casten generate all this local, national and international media- attention for his new company? How did his company get coverage in websites and blogs of some of the world’s leading wine critics? He adapted a guerrilla marketing example he learned at a SCORE workshop to his business.
SCORE’s guest speaker, Al Lautenslager, told how he issued a press release offering Boeing free business cards if they moved to Illinois when that company was considering new location for their headquarters. Lautenslager stated that the offer was totally ignored by Boeing, but picked up by the press and thus generated business for his printing company.
Not long after the SCORE workshop, Casten sat on a plane with a copy of the book Guerrilla Marketing and the most recent Sports Illustrated. In the magazine, Coach Gregg Popovich of the NBA Champion San Antonio Spurs, . Coach Popovich described his 3,000 bottle cellar and his love of Pinot Noir. The last line mentioned that there is one wine he has never tasted because “it is rare and expensive”.
With the Boeing example fresh in his mind, Casten could not wait to get off the plane. Before touchdown, he drafted a press release / invitation on the blank pages at the end of the book. In it, Casten and co-host Tanya Hart of A Taste of Vino, a family owned boutique wine shop, invited Coach Popovich to taste these fantastically expensive wines in Hinsdale, Illinois, as long as he agreed to do it all for charity.
Long story short, Coach Popovich agreed! On November 6th, the day before the Spurs play the Bulls, the Coach is coming to A Taste of Vino for an intimate tasting that will raise money for Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation. The event became even cooler when Naha, one of Chicago’s best restaurants, agreed to create and donate food pairings for the evening. National wine magazines including Wine Spectator and The Wine Enthusiast have expressed interest in having pictures from the event. “We will not be shocked if the event is mentioned in Sports Illustrated, as the author of the original story is aware of what we are up to,” says Casten. Thanks to the event, Casten has built a relationship with representatives of Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation, which he finds satisfying from both a personal and a professional standpoint. Already they have introduced him to a major corporation that is interested in a series of unique food and wine events organized by Candid Wines.
The bottom line, guerrilla marketing works, and Casten learned how to do it at SCORE.
