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“Old school laws and antiquated business
models have forced wine lovers to unnecessarily
pay too much for great wine. Empathy is able
to produce and ship high quality wines directly
to consumers who would otherwise pay double
the price at their local retailer,” he added.
As part of the deal, the Empathy Wines
brand will be integrated into Constellation’s
wine and spirits portfolio.
Empathy’s employees will join the Constella-
tion team, with Troutman and Scherotter over-
seeing day-to-day operations and Vaynerchuk
staying on in a consulting role.
Constellation will benefit from Empathy’s
brand building expertise and consumer insi-
ghts to built its direct to consumer sales across
the company’s portfolio.
For more than a decade, Vaynerchuk has been an “Empathy Wines has the right team and app-
evangelist for a branch of entrepreneurism known roach to help us deliver exceptional brands and
as “hustle culture,” a philosophy that looks a lot like experiences to our consumers, and thereby indu-
meritocracy, but with punchier slogans. stry-leading growth, by expediting our ability to
Distributed to his 4.5 million Facebook followers, more deeply connect with consumers and build
8.3 million Instagram followers, and 2.1 million the strongest direct-to-consumer and digital
Twitter followers, the video resembles the thou- commerce business in the category,” said Bill
sands of others Vaynerchuk has posted over the Newlands, Constellation’s CEO.
past 14 years: a raw, barely edited aesthetic, with “Our ability to understand and ‘empathise’
Vaynerchuk addressing the camera head-on in the with the modern-day wine consumer’s behavi-
tone of a football coach having a heart-to-heart our, wants, and needs has been proven through
pep talk with a struggling player. He’s 44 years old, Empathy’s incredible growth,” said Vaynerchuk.
with a raspy voice, and gray stubble — dad-age to “We are excited to replicate this consumer-
many of his young fans (he’s said he has particu- -centric approach at a larger scale, and with
lar influence with young men aged 15 to 25, and more infrastructure, working with leadership
has 4.6 million followers on the Gen Z-dominated that is making investments in a quickly evol-
platform TikTok) — but there’s something about his ving category.”
prolific F-bombs that make him seem like the cool Born in Belarus, Vaynerchuk moved to the US
grown-up. The one who is actually going to tell you aged three and began working at his father’s
how the world works instead of insisting that you wine shop in New Jersey aged 14, joining full
do your homework. time in 1998. The success of his entertaining
Wine Library TV videos helped turn his fami-
“We started Empathy Wines as a radical new ly’s humble Wine Library store into a US$60m
way of selling wine. We want people to pay less business.
for great wines while shining a spotlight on After filming 1,000 episodes, in 2011 Vay-
top-tier grape growers – the unsung heroes of nerchuk ceased Wine Library TV, swapping it
the wine world,” Vaynerchuk said at the time for video podcast The Daily Grape. In 2009 he
of Empathy’s launch. stepped away from wine to launch social me-
We all agree, or? dia focused digital agency VaynerMedia. ƅ
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