Wine by word-of-mouth

The always excellent Hugh MacLeod – who also does the social marketing for Stormhoek wine - has highlighted an interesting innovation over at Threshers.
In the run up to Christmas they are offering a stonking 40 per cent discount on their wine and champagne. So what? A great deal of course but having worked for discounters in the past this is nothing special.
Until you realise, as Hugh points, that Threshers are doing absolutely no promotion on this special offer. None whatsoever – other than the post I discovered at the Stormhoek website at the weekend where you can download the coupon.
To me this seems like a pretty clever marketing campaign with no costs involved other than generating word-of-mouth from bloggers and others on the internet. It will be pretty interesting to discover how well this works as it is one of the few word-of-mouth marketing initiatives I can think off where the retailer will be able to a true understanding of the ROI almost instantly.
I notice Neville Hobson has already commented on this too and is calling on people to spread the cause. “Tell your friends,” he says. “If you write a blog, blog it as well.”
Meanwhile, I can thoroughly recommend Stormhoek wine as I had a couple of bottles at the weekend.