Blue Nun revamps out-of-date image

Blue Nun is shaking off its habit in a bid to get down with the kids.

As RTDs continue to fall from favour, the iconic seventies wine brand that fell from fashion in the eighties will be relaunched this month in a bid to attract young women drinkers to their first glass of wine.

A new, stylised label will feature no more than a hint of a wimple as UK distributor Ehrmanns targets the group that marketing director Keith Lay calls "wine virgins".

The relaunch will be backed by a £500,000 press ad campaign that promotes a four-strong Blue Nun range and asks consumers "what's your favourite colour?".

"We have a three-year plan to take Blue Nun past a million cases a year into the UK top 20 wine brands," said Mr Lay. "The on-trade is our next big challenge. The 25cl single serve bottle is already doing very well in pubs and Blue Nun rosé is an interesting proposition for us in a rosé market being driven by young women who are switching out of RTDs.

"It's not the consumer who has preconceptions about Blue Nun, it's the trade buyers."

Blue Nun sales in this country over the past five years have already trebled as Ehrmanns has introduced variations on the original German wine.

Amazingly, it still comes out in surveys as Britain's best known wine brand - "and that's a very interesting fact for a marketeer," said Mr Lay. "Despite the issues that surround the brand, it shows there is a huge potential for us to tap into. But we need to relaunch and revitalise it to recruit new consumers."

"Every day, someone starts their wine-drinking career," he continued. "Blue Nun can become a key brand among wine virgins, women aged 18 to 24 who might otherwise be drinking RTDs."