Chateau St. Michelle - Essay Example

Chateau Ste. Michelle winery is one of the oldest and most prestigious winery. Its wines have won many awards due to the tradition, innovation and high standard. Chateau Ste. Michelle grows its own grape and uses the French oak barrels. All of the winemakers have learned their skills in Europe and Chateau Ste. Michelle is included among the top wines of the world (E-winegifts.com). Chateau Ste. Michelle correspond to the way of life and it is not necessary to be an expert to sense the quality of this noble drink - this is how the company positions its product.

The above information is probably the only information known to wide audience about Chateau Ste. Michelle, however, under the closer examination some of the competitive strategies become obvious.Chateau Ste. Michelle has a specific effort to please customers, makes offensive and defensive moves to counter rival's actions and responses to market conditions, thus strengthening its market position. The goal of the competitive strategy is to do the better job in providing what buyers are looking for.

It is possible to say that Chateau Ste. Michelle has the edge over rivals in attracting buyers and coping with competitive forces - being among the top preferred brands is an evidence of this. One of the distinct features of the Chateau Ste. Michelle is that the top management pays close attention to performing value chain activities differently than rivals - for example, growing the grape on its own rather than buying it from suppliers. It creates additional value in the eyes of the consumers.

Out of the five competitive strategy approaches the broad differentiation strategy is the most applied in this specific company. For example, Chateau Ste. Michelle does not apply low cost provider or focused market niche strategy because its products are of higher price compared to the competitors. In return, the customers get more differentiated products at the cost that corresponds to the high quality. From the other side, the marketing strategy of Chateau Ste. Michelle is targeted at the specific segment of population - confident adults of high social standing who have achieved their goals and want to enjoy their lives.

Chateau Ste. Michelle concentrated on this segment and tries to out-compete rivals by offering niche members customized attributes that meet their tastes and requirements better. The product line of the company is quite wide. Just to name few - Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery 2001 Indian Wells Chardonnay, Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery 2001 Cold Creek Chardonnay, and Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon Cold Creek Vineyard (E-winegifts.com). Company positions its products as prestigious and giving long names to the brands is one of the methods to stress the wine's quality (similar to the long titles of royal family members).

This technique makes the buyer think that the wine must of high quality and creates the motivation to buy this wine. It is hard to say that the strategy of Chateau Ste. Michelle is offensive - the company did not aggressively took over the market share of competition, but has obtained the loyalty of large market segments. Among the offensive principles employed at Chateau Ste. Michelle, the most effective are - assessing the strength of the target competition (seeing the unmet needs) and finding the weakness of the rival's positions and attacking at that point.

Due to the higher profits, Chateau Ste. Michelle is able to afford large amounts of funds on market research and analysis of competitor's strategy. Seeing the weak sides of the marketing and attacking on as narrow as possible, Chateau Ste. Michelle can concentrate on the strategy development more. The attack is the best defense - while the competitor is thinking on how to reply, Chateau Ste. Michelle is already developing the new strategy to gain the market share.At the same time, the strategy of Chateau Ste.

Michelle seems to be highly defensive. The competition at winery market is very intensive because the drink is prestigious and the quality of the product cannot be always predicted. For this reason every attack from competitors is counted with the equal force - if the competitor has developed an interesting commercial, Chateau Ste. Michelle will spent twice more resources to develop more compelling commercial. This struggle is typical for many markets and industries, and the winery market is not exclusion.

Chateau Ste. Michelle has confidently positioned itself on the market through stressing the true needs of the customers - being tradition while at the same time innovative, offering the high quality as well as wide range of choice. Works CitedE-winegifts.com. Fine Wine Merchant - The Saratoga Wine Exchange. 22 May 2006