Gadgetopia

Blog wine Stormhoek doubles sales: Seriously, give us free stuff. Cars would be nice. Computers are good too.

Anyway, this South African winery was really upfront about a blogging-focused marketing campaign, and it appears to have paid off.

Around 100 bottles of the Stormhoek Shiraz 2004 and Sauvignon Blanc 2005 […] were sent out via blogger Hugh Macleod and his website gabingvoid.com in May 2005, in Europe only.

The result, says Stormhoek spokesman Nick Dymoke Marr, is that the wine now has a 19% share of the over-L5 South African wine market, and sales went from 50,000 cases in 2004 to 100,000 last year.

After word of this success gets out, the next headline will be: “Drunk blogging on the rise.”

All kidding aside, this is a good way to get the word out about something. If you want to give me something, give me two — one for me, and one to give away to a reader. I’ll review it, but I can’t promise a positive review, ‘cause that would be lame and what would be the point?

In the spirit of full disclosure, I’ve gotten some free stuff in the past: Cold Winter, the video game; copies of ASPRunner and PHPRunner (of which I’m a huge fan); a copy of Sound Spectrum G-Force; and a few books I haven’t gotten to yet. Not a huge amount of schwag, but it’s neat nonetheless.