John Downes MW launches ‘Downes in Twenty (Din20)’
Two years ago John Downes MW created ‘Downes in Two’, a series of two minute animations to get an understanding of wine to the consumer and enthusiast alike. Although the animations continue to receive encouraging feedback he realised that they are not so effective, as he says “confirming global research that indicates a viewer’s video concentration span starts to wane at about 40 seconds.”
As a consequence, John recently launched DOWNES IN TWENTY, a series of very short animations to get his wine message out there in about 20 seconds.
You can view all episodes to date on John’s Instagram page at johndownesmw
The latest Din20 reflects a question John is always being asked, “John, what is a Master of Wine?”
John says, “Like many professions, the Wine Trade suffers from The Curse of Knowledge Bias, where the communicator assumes that the person they’re communicating with has the same depth of knowledge as they have. They don’t. The result is, although the audience may smile and nod, they do not receive the ‘message’. The cost of this bias to the Wine Trade is considerable.
We as Masters of Wine are also subject to this bias, not only within our day-to-day work in the Wine Trade but also in communicating the Master of Wine title. As I travel the world I find that very few people outside the Wine Trade have a clue what it is. The cost to MW’s is considerable.
As one smart marketeer once said, “you must be able to tell somebody what you do in one sentence”. It’s a difficult shout but one worth pursuing.
Hopefully the Din20 MASTER OF WINE animation will help give a simple, pleasing answer when people ask that predictable question. When Joe and Josephine Public know more about us we will thrive even more.”
John Downes MW