Launching VINOva.
A heritage Italian winery wanted into the U.S. market — with no brand awareness, no direct channel, and a customer who had never heard of them. The work was earning a stranger's trust.
An Italian-based winery wants to enter the US market. Research showed the barrier wasn't taste — it was trust in an unfamiliar brand online. We designed a virtual tasting kit with live guided sessions to turn buying into discovery, then built the full funnel around it: influencer awareness, tasting-led consideration, DTC conversion, email retention.
The problem
American shoppers face overwhelming wine choice online, and they are rightly skeptical of premium brands they've never tasted. COVID had removed the one channel that traditionally solved this — the in-person tasting.
So the brief became: build trust and drive discovery for an unknown brand, in a crowded, digital-first market.
Trust, not taste, is the barrier to the first bottle.
— SYNTHESIS OF U.S. CONSUMER + MARKET ANALYSIS
The strategy, in slides
14 SLIDES · ORIGINAL DECKHow the strategy came together
Segment the drinkers
U.S. consumption and digital-behavior analysis produced two personas: the frequent drinker, who buys on knowledge, and the social drinker, who buys on experience.
Name the barrier
Both personas hesitated at the same point: no trust in an unfamiliar brand online — while demand for interactive, social experiences kept rising.
Design the experience
A virtual tasting kit — five curated wines shipped home, tasted together on live Zoom and Instagram sessions. Buying shifted from transaction to guided discovery.
Build the funnel
Paid social and influencers for awareness; live tastings and storytelling for consideration; a DTC microsite plus Vivino for conversion; email and UGC for retention.
What the research said
SOURCE — U.S. CONSUMER + MARKET ANALYSIS- a.
Trust is the primary adoption barrier for new wine brands — more than price, more than taste.
- b.
Guided experiences raise purchase confidence. A tasting with an expert on screen substitutes for the tasting-room visit.
- c.
Discovery is social-first. Digital and social channels dominate how new drinkers find wine — not shelf placement.
- d.
Authentic storytelling differentiates in a commoditized market — a heritage winery has a story mass brands can't copy.
Where it landed
- —Guerrieri's first U.S. market-entry strategy — personas, positioning, and a full-funnel GTM plan.
- —An experience-led product concept (the virtual tasting kit) that answers the trust barrier directly.
- —A scalable digital-first growth model, opening DTC and partnership-led expansion.