This Champagne Brand Champions the Female Leaders of Tomorrow

HUR CONVERSATIONS

Mar 14

Carole Bildé

This Champagne Brand Champions the Female Leaders of Tomorrow

By Bonnie Langedijk

The $61 billion dollar champagne market wouldn’t be the same without the women who built it. The first association many of us would make with champagne is luxury or celebration. But only few are aware of the impact women have had on the success of the beverage. Madame Clicquot, the woman behind renowned champagne brand Veuve Clicquot, was one of the first female entrepreneurs of her time and started the female revolution in champagne. She single handedly changed the industry from the age of 27, in a time when women weren’t allowed to have their own bank accounts, let alone run their own businesses. The Grand Dame of Champagne built not only a business but a brand that has withstood the tests of time. The world has changed since then, but the French champagne house is continuing her legacy.

At the helm of elevating the brand as a luxury house beyond champagne is Veuve Clicquot’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Carole Bildé. She joined the luxury house in 2018, following her role as Head of Brand, Communication, Digital and E-commerce at French fashion brand Chloé. “Supporting women is integral to the Veuve brand,” Bildé said. The brand has launched countless initiatives to support and advocate for female leaders and entrepreneurs, including the Bold programme and the annual Bold Woman and Bold Future Awards. “All the women who are do-ers, who take risks and go for it inspire me every day. I have a boundless admiration for women entrepreneurs. They don’t cheat.”

We wanted to know more and spoke with the CMO about the rockstar legacy of Madame Clicquot, the key ingredients for building a successful brand and how we can best support this and the next generation of female founders.

*Carole Bildé at the Bold By Veuve Clicquot award ceremony. Courtesy of Veuve Clicquot.*

Before Veuve Clicquot you worked at Chloé as the Womenswear Head of Brand, Communication, Digital and E-commerce. What was it like to transition from a fashion brand to a champagne brand?

There are huge differences. The product cycle is one of them. Our champagnes spend a minimum of 3 years ageing in our cellars, so if you want to innovate you must anticipate in a major way. But there are many commonalities too. The know-how passed down from generation to generation and the people who are passionate about what they do. One of the key challenges we have in the wines and spirits sector is that we have almost no retail. We have no direct control of merchandising, of the customer experience, of the brand speech. The search for coherence is a real challenge.

“Building the DESIRABILITY of our brands is as true for fashion as it is for champagne.”

I can imagine. It’s more difficult to align all communication with the end-user if you are unable to control all channels. The question becomes how you build a consistent experience. Is there a difference between how you approach brand building?

The fundamental things don’t change. Building the desirability of our brands is as true for fashion as it is for champagne. No matter how old the brand is, you have to be very clear on the role you play in your category, and more widely in the luxury space. I like to ask this question: What would the world miss if your brand suddenly disappeared? It appears very simple at first glance but calls for serious work on purging and making choices. It boils down to purpose and our message and contribution to the world. I like to find out what the essence of the brand is. The more accurate it is, the more it rings true, the more people believe in it.

Absolutely. In a world where there’s so much choice, it needs to be extremely clear why you exist and what you stand for. What do you believe are some of the key ingredients a brand needs to succeed in today’s environment?

Don’t fake it. The more accurate it is, the more it rings true. Don’t copy and paste – find your own way, and nourish it. A luxury brand has to be committed and it has to be sincere. It has to be linked to who you are and what you believe in, not because you’re forced into it. If you’re not sincere, people will see it immediately and that’s worse than saying nothing at all. It also has to be concrete, with facts; it can’t just be pretty words in PowerPoint presentations.

*Veuve Clicquot’s Sunny Side Up Cafe in London. Courtesy of Veuve Clicquot.*

Consumers are more sensitive than ever to brands that are inauthentic – they see right through you. I remember going to the Sunny Side Up pop-up cafe in London a year ago, and you told the story of Madame Clicquot. I had never heard it before, but after that story the complete Veuve Clicquot world made sense to me. For those who don’t know the story, would you be able to share it with us and how it informs the Veuve brand today?

Madame Clicquot, first name Barbe Nicole. She was such a rockstar. In 1805, Madame Clicquot suddenly became a widow. She was 27, she had a little girl. Women didn’t have the right to work, or to even hold a bank account. The only exception to the rule was that if you were a widow you could take over a family business, which is what she did. She decided to run the company, and over time she managed to revolutionise the champagne industry. She invented the riddling table, the first blended rosé, the first vintage champagne. She had to face so many challenges, but she never gave up. She pushed the boundaries and at the end of her life she was recognized by her peers – mostly men – as “La Grande Dame.” Madame Clicquot’s audacity, creativity and profound optimism have left their mark on the House and guided its decisions, decade after decade. This culture of inclusion, of the feminine – and also of disruption; the key to innovation – is what led us to plan an original exhibition for the 250th anniversary of the Maison. It hits London in May. It’s called Solaire Culture, and is produced by an all-woman team, with 100% original commissions.

Even today Madame Cliquot’s story is unique, as the alcohol industry is still largely male focused. What’s your take on the state of the alcohol industry?

I joined the world of wine and spirits four years ago, so I can’t say much about how it has changed. What I’ve noticed in those four years is that, without any doubt, there’s better visibility given to women in fields that were traditionally dominated by men. There are more women managing estates and producing wine with a new take on this traditional category.

How is Veuve Clicquot moving the category forward?

There’s a real determination at the Group level to put women in key positions in all these areas. Veuve Clicquot has a special place, due to the legacy of Madame Clicquot which is very much alive. I have found that this House gives the freedom to create, which is the total opposite of the conservative image often associated with the sector. And there are figures to bear this out. Veuve Clicquot management has an equal ratio of women to men. We have also more or less achieved salary equality and the board is pretty much equal.

How do you translate that to women outside of the business?

Today, there’s a real question around the visibility of women entrepreneurs. There are stellar women entrepreneurs all over the world, but we don’t know about them – it’s crazy! We’re focused on giving more visibility to women entrepreneurs, globally. It’s one of the things that makes the Bold program different. The candidates are sourced locally so we get to meet those gems whom we would never have known about otherwise. More visible women also means more role models, and more inspiration for other women to launch out as entrepreneurs. My dream would be to make entrepreneurship non-gender-specific. To talk only about entrepreneurship and not about women’s entrepreneurship. But there’s still a long road to travel.

The Veuve Clicquot BOLD Woman Award Shortlist 2023. Tessa Clarke of OLIO, Izzy Obeng of Foundervine, Victoria Prew of HURR, Clare Hornby of ME+EM, Louise Hill of GoHenry, Karen Scofield Seal of Oceanium. Courtesy of Veuve Clicquot.

I couldn’t agree more. I would love to see a world where someone’s gender becomes irrelevant when we talk about business. Over the years, what are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned about the progress in society when it comes to female entrepreneurship and representation?

There’s real progress, things are moving, but it’s a fragile balance. Our Bold barometer measures the perception of women’s entrepreneurship in 23 countries to date, and it doesn’t have great news. Take the UK for example. In 2023, female entrepreneurs in the UK are feeling the pressure and uncertainty of the global situation. They’re responding with less resilience and optimism compared to their female counterparts in many other countries around the world. There’s a decline in female entrepreneurship versus 2021, and fewer women are aspiring to become entrepreneurs. There’s lower self-confidence, a persistent belief that risks of entrepreneurship outweigh the benefits and that women need to change their behaviour to succeed as entrepreneurs, to name just a few of the findings.

That’s shocking. It’s interesting how there can be such a difference between countries and cultures and how we perceive risk and uncertainty. What do you believe some of the things we can do to support female entrepreneurs?

Anything we can do to give them more visibility. We’ve created and launched a tool that I’m convinced can be a game changer: the Bold Open Database. Designed with the data scientist Aurélie Jean, it’s the first open global database for female entrepreneurs, which inventories and gives visibility of all the women entrepreneurs on the planet. You can register free of charge. From there, Researchers, journalists and investors can use the platform to see the profiles of female entrepreneurs in every field, with businesses of any size. So that we never hear excuses again like “I would have liked to invite a woman entrepreneur onto the panel, but there aren’t any” or “I’d like to invest more in businesses started by women but there are no applications!” No excuse!

It’s sad that it’s still necessary, but I agree that we need to put women front and centre. What are you excited about for the future of female entrepreneurship?

What I find fascinating, and I’ve noticed this in all the countries where I’ve met women entrepreneurs, is what motivates women to start their own business. The starting point is almost systematically about improving daily life or the world itself. Not about earning money. All these audacious women have a chance to build tomorrow’s world. And, beyond the challenge of equality, they are an essential component in that world. The challenge of having more women in tech, for example. Improving their number is fundamental if we don’t want the innovations that fashion the world of tomorrow to be exclusively designed through men’s eyes. Making women entrepreneurs more visible means telling our girls that everything is possible. And that they too can change the world.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.