TABLE TALK

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⚙️ Table Talk #113: Peculiar Product Pivots 🍚

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TABLE TALK #113
This time last year, something equal parts alarming and altogether enlivening happened.

Having set about to produce our white wine, Piquant, Summer Cuvée, something we longed for but didn’t think we were ready for, was spontaneously conceived.

A surprise, yes, but even more surprising was quite how fast it sold out, and quite how hungry the world was more variation on our alcohol free theme.

Today’s Table Talk is dedicated to the peculiar, yet powerful, evolutions of now-household brands.

🍝 MAIN COURSE 🍝 

First stop, Tech.

Pub quiz. Slogan game. Which now-ubiquitous social media platform launched with “Tune In, Hook Up”? Bizarrely, the catch phrase was the unofficial slogan of YouTube, when it launched on Valentine’s Day 2005. It was promptly dumped however as it soon became clear users weren’t half as interested in a video dating site as they were in posting silly cat videos.

Another company that existed for centuries before its Donkey Kong days was Nintendo, and there was hardly a product category they didn’t explore. Ready-to-eat rice, vacuum cleaners, short stay love hotels - you name it, they tried it.


And who knew Wrigley wasn’t always famed for its chewing gum?! In fact, they only created it as a token gift to offer alongside the soap and baking powder which was then the company's bread and butter.

Quite possibly our favourite product pivot however is Play-Doh. When it launched a century ago, Play-Doh sold wall cleaner. It was only during a sales slump, hungry to diversify, that they took note of a school teacher using their product for her arts & crafts classes and decided that multi-coloured modelling compound was really their raison d'être.

Photo Credit: Hake's Auction

 

🍮 SWEET ENDINGS 🍮

While all the above spun on their heels a while back, Patagonia is a brand that’s rewriting their own rule book all the time.

We love their recent Patagonia Provisions offshoot, a marketplace of food products, all with long shelf lives, created with the aim of restoring the planet instead of destroying it.

🍷 WHAT'S NEW
FROM
WEDNESDAY'S DOMAINE? 🍷
If you enjoyed the above, something tells us you're going to love what we've been cooking up of late.

In recent months, we've driven thousands of miles, spoken more European languages than a Brussels delegate and managed to enjoy some beautiful wines along the way.

We can't wait to share more next week, but in the meantime, a reminder that you can enjoy 15% off all wines between now and Easter Monday with the code BUNNY15.

Luke x

More where that came from...