Forget consumers – we need to change the way we talk to the trade

Sarah Neish for The Drinks Business

This feels like a particularly good example of what the School of Cool is meant to do – not simply deliver ideas, but provoke conversations that keep unfolding long after the session ends. Véronique Rivest’s keynote challenged the wine trade to reconsider the language it uses with consumers. Writing for The Drinks Business, Sarah Neish takes that challenge one step further: if we know we need to speak differently to consumers, why are we still speaking to each other in exactly the same old way?

Her argument moves beyond tasting notes and technical detail to something more fundamental – how wine communicates people, place and experience, and whether the trade sometimes gets in the way of the very connection it is trying to create.

Another fascinating discussion sparked by this year’s School of Cool, and proof that a provocative keynote can have a life well beyond the room in which it was delivered.

Read Sarah’s story here.