Future-Proofing the Wine Category Through Consumer-Led Innovation

‍The Challenge

‍As one of the world’s largest wine businesses, Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) operates at scale across Australia, Asia, the US, the UK, and EMEA. While that scale is a competitive advantage, it also created complexity for innovation: consumer insights were often fragmented by market, function, and methodology - slowing decision-making and limiting global alignment.

At the same time, the wine category itself was changing. Recruiting Millennial and Gen Z drinkers had become a strategic imperative, yet traditional wine language and innovation cycles were increasingly misaligned with how younger consumers discover, choose, and talk about wine.

‍One signal crystalised the urgency:‍

TWE recognised that future-proofing the category would require more than faster execution. It demanded a fundamental shift from episodic, market-specific research to a continuous, consumer-led innovation model that could surface opportunity early, align teams quickly, and validate bold ideas with confidence.

The Insight

Future-proofing the category means building with customers, not reacting to them.

TWE didn’t need more research. They needed a living system - one that continuously listens, learns, and compounds understanding over time.

That insight led TWE to pursue a true partnership model. Following a competitive “Shark Tank”-style pitch, Ideally was selected as TWE’s partner to help re-engineer how consumer insight fuels innovation.

Together, TWE and Ideally replaced instinct-led decision-making with an AI-powered, consumer-driven engine, enabling three critical shifts:

‍Innovation with the next generation
Precisely engage younger cohorts to understand demand for lighter styles, lower alcohol, and flavour-forward propositions - captured in consumers’ own words.

‍Confidence to lead, not follow
Move beyond incremental change to test bold, distinctive ideas at scale, learning quickly what resonates and why.

‍Consumer insight, democratised
Make live consumer data readily accessible across Brand, Innovation, Strategy, and Commercial teams to align the organisation around the same real-time signals.

Critically, Ideally’s platform captures open-ended consumer responses and uses AI to automatically identify themes at scale. This unlocked rich qualitative insight in near real-time, shifting the organisation’s focus from debating opinions to interrogating the why behind consumer behaviour.

The Outcome

‍Together, TWE and Ideally built the Treasury Innovation Engine. This is an always-on, AI-powered system designed to future-proof the wine category by keeping consumers at the centre of innovation.

The Engine provides cross-functional, global access to live consumer data, making insight readily available across TWE and enabling teams to move faster, together.

‍The Engine allows teams to:

Identify White Space
Match emerging consumer needs to the right brand and portfolio opportunity.

‍Build the Total Proposition with Consumers
Rapidly iterate on packaging, flavour profiles, and price points simultaneously -informed directly by consumer feedback.

‍Scale Ideas Globally, Adapt Locally
Maintain global alignment while fine-tuning market-specific nuances overnight across the US, Australia, and the UK.

‍This consumer-led system has already powered four successful launches:

‍‍Cali by Snoop (Smooth)
A culture- and flavour-led red wine range for the US. Consumer testing identified “smooth” as the defining descriptor for younger red wine drinkers - and TWE put it straight on pack. The result: a Top 10 new product launch, as tracked by Circana.

‍Sorbet
Launched in Australia in March 2025 through Endeavour Group. Designed to amplify natural varietal flavours by ~10%, Sorbet reflects a clear consumer preference for intensity and freshness over subtlety. Lemon Prosecco is outperforming the category average in a highly competitive segment.

‍Matua Bagnums
A two-bottle pouch format designed for portability, driven by Gen Z demand for wine that travels. Recently launched in select US retailers and already over-indexing with younger consumers, recruiting new drinkers into the category.

‍Squealini
A spritz extension of Squealing Pig, built around consumer appetite for bubbles and bold flavour. Now moving into alternative formats to reach more consumers meeting them at and with their evolving lifestyles.

Results
‍

One Living, Consumer-Led System
A unified, AI-powered platform with cross-functional, global access - making consumer insight readily available across TWE.

Faster Innovation Cycles
Time from concept to minimum viable product reduced from 9 months to 90 days.

Stronger Commercial Authority
Retailer pitches backed by robust consumer samples in the thousands, not dozens.

Radical Agility
Consumer insight turnaround reduced from months to under 48 hours.

Repeat Purchase as Proof
‍Key innovations lead to increased consumer repeat purchase rates.