Tech industry veteran Jeanette Morgan pours her heart into Oregon’s wine marketing but faces weak sales and staff departures ; Buy Wines in Pampanga

Philippine Wine Shop reports news about wines: Tech industry veteran Jeanette Morgan pours her heart into Oregon’s wine marketing but faces weak sales and staff departures
May 29, 2011
Jeanette Morgan swapped a high-powered job in Silicon Valley for the challenge of running Oregon’s $1.4 billion commercial wine industry.

Six months into her new position as executive director of the Oregon Wine Board, she’s getting the challenge she asked for.

A weak economy, for instance, has continued to hinder wine sales, especially in the higher price points inhabited by pinot noir, hands-down Oregon’s flagship wine grape.

Since marketing is one of the wine board’s primary functions, the onus is squarely on Morgan to devise strategies to keep sales brisk and brand awareness high, even as consumers are increasingly trading down in search of value.

Among her solutions is a fledgling campaign to create awareness of Oregon wines at all price points. Introducing consumers to $10 bottles of blended reds from southern Oregon, she said, might entice them to try Willamette Valley pinot noir, which buyers can now find at reduced prices because of extensive discounting among sales-hungry producers.

Morgan faces institutional challenges as well.

Five of the wine board’s nine staff members have left since her hiring last fall. The mini-exodus isn’t unlike what happens at many organizations when new leadership takes charge. But it’s left the office at least temporarily shorthanded and sparked a round of questions from industry watchers about just what’s going on in the wine board’s spare but comfortable offices on the fourth floor of the historic Albers Mill Building on the Willamette River near downtown Portland.

If Morgan is unnerved by any of this, she doesn’t show it.

“Oregon and its wines have a wonderful story to tell,” she said during a recent interview. “I’m very much looking forward to getting on with the business of sharing that story.”

Industry support for Morgan does not appear to be wavering. She earned high marks, for example, for her efforts to get out of the Willamette Valley and tour winegrowing regions across the state, including those in eastern and southern Oregon.

Earl Jones, founder of Abacela vineyard and winery in Roseburg, noted that Morgan’s predecessor, Ted Farthing, made maybe a handful of trips through the Umpqua Valley during his nearly six years directing the wine board. Morgan, he said, has already matched that number.

“At the rate Jeanette’s going,” Jones said, “she is going to make Ted look like he never visited southern Oregon at all.”

The Oregon Wine Board is one of a dozen semi-independent state agencies. Its annual budget of about $2 million relies on revenues drawn, in large part, from a $25-a-ton tax on grapes crushed by Oregon wineries and a 2-cents-a-gallon tax on imported wines and certain wine sold within the state. The board also receives grant funding.

In addition to long-term strategic planning and promotion of Oregon wines, the wine board’s chartered functions include educational efforts and overseeing research, much of which is now conducted at the new Oregon Wine Research Institute in Corvallis.

Morgan, unlike Farthing, didn’t come to the job with an extensive wine-industry resume. Wine board directors, however, made it clear they weren’t looking for just another insider. In Morgan, a fit, 44-year-old avid cyclist, that’s just what they got.

She did know more than a little about wine, having audited viticulture and oenology classes at the University of California at Davis and logging weekends leading winery tours in the area some years ago.

But it was the management experience she chalked up while serving as vice president of global government affairs at National Semiconductor Corp. in Santa Clara that ultimately turned heads in Oregon.

As a loaned executive, she helped establish a public policy organization named Technology Network. TechNet, as it is more commonly known, is regarded as one of the high-tech industry’s first advocacy organizations.

“The wine industry is sophisticated enough today that it is impossible for someone to be a specialist in all the areas we need to address,” said Sam Tannahill, wine board chairman. “We really needed a CEO who can run the entire organization. Jeanette fits that bill perfectly.”

Tannahill acknowledged the seemingly high number of staff departures since Morgan took over, but declined to call it out of the ordinary.

“I don’t consider it a mass exodus at all,” Tannahill said. “The people who left did so to pursue other opportunities.”

Several of the former employees declined to comment on why they left.

Moving forward, Morgan said she wants to increase in-state awareness of Oregon’s wine industry. One way to accomplish that, she said, are new promotional campaigns aimed at driving consumers to wine shops, winery tasting rooms and restaurants specializing in Oregon wines.

Once there, she said, she is confident that wine drinkers will like what they discover. Bottles of Oregon pinot noir that were routinely priced at $35 to $50 only a few years ago now retail for $20 to $25, due to producers’ needs to bring their prices in line with consumer demand. Other marketing techniques, such as the use of second labels, wine-club specials and deep discounts for case sales are also very much in play.

Morgan also wants to strengthen ties with Travel Oregon, the Oregon tourism campaign, to promote nationally all parts of Oregon wine country as destination points.

“We’ve got a real treasure here,” Morgan said. “Really, I think we’re just getting started.”

http://www.oregonlive.com/wine/index.ssf/2011/05/tech_industry_veteran_jeanette.html

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