5 Key Battles in Spirits Marketing
Having great products is merely a slender slice of the pie needed for success…
Marketing spirits brands is tough. Most categories (maybe all!) are saturated, meaning not only is it hard to have a unique product, but also increasingly difficult to achieve brand stand-out.
Add that to the fact that marketing is more complex than ever, and you have the perfect storm. I’ve tried to highlight five of the key challenges below.
1 - Alcohol has reputational issues
Photo by Максим Власенко on Unsplash
The demon drink? The fact is, that alcohol, when not consumed responsibly, can be bad for our health in many ways. The need for drinks brands to ensure they’re marketing their products responsibly has (rightly so), has never been stronger.
What does this mean in practice? Well, any language around how a product may make you feel is a no-no. It needs to be about the experience of enjoying the drink in question, and not that fact that a perfectly served G&T may aid in a feeling of relaxation. The focus has to be on flavour, not effects.
Any messaging around drinking at a high-volume has to be avoided, and that goes against what ultimately our aim is — to sell more alcohol.
This leads us as marketers to the fact that we have to explore options that fit nicely around the product itself. A lifestyle perhaps? Or subject areas that we know our customers (and prospects) are interested in. That of course requires a clear understanding of what our audience is ‘in-to’, which isn’t always easy.
2 — Bottle shots are dull
Yup, I said it. While we of course have to show people what our products are, there’s a horrible tendency to default to using bottle shots as the crux of a brand’s content. They’re an easy option.
For me, it’s far better to push way beyond that, and create content that tells more of a story, takes people on some kind of journey and aids the growth of brand affinity.
Photo by Keenan Barber on Unsplash
Am I saying that bottle shots should be eradicated? Of course not. They often perform very well on social media and are vital to show-off a product. At the very least though, boundaries should be pushed with the creation of them.
For me, it’s about striking the right balance between bottle and serve shots, and content that adds so much more to the story. A 70/30 split feels right.
3 — Advertising platforms don’t like us
I’ll get very specific with an example here. Facebook allows us to advertise alcohol (most of the time, but that’s another story) across its platforms, however, it will not allow built-in shopping features on Facebook and Instagram to be used for the shilling of alcohol products.
This creates annoying friction. When you are posting your sensational new bottle shots (😉) on Instagram, wouldn’t it be just lovely if you could allow people to buy it right then and there? The answer is yes, yet, we can’t do it. Will that ever change? Who knows…
4 — Bricks and Mortar
There’s a high-chance that your brand has an at-least partial reliance on selling your products via trade, whether that be ‘on’ or ‘off’ or both. In order to attract new customers, there’s that ever-pressing need for ‘liquor to lips’.
Joining the dots from an online experience such as someone loving your latest video on YouTube to then feeling compelled enough to go into a bar and ask for your whisky is tough. The hard part here is knowing if our efforts are actually seeing positive results.
Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Sure, if said bar starts increasing orders, then great! But as a digitally-focussed marketer, I threaten to come-out in hives if I don’t know if our campaigns etc have had a direct bearing on that success.
I don’t have the answers for this issue, but am certainly working hard on coming up with them. The truth is though, it’ll never be fully solved.
5 — Mega-Brand Domination
The likes of Diageo have such astonishing budgets and clout that it can often feel like pushing treacle up-a-hill when trying to make your brands cut-through the noise. They’re everywhere, an expensive omni-presence that can leave plucky, smaller brands with a bloody nose.
How to combat that? Well, there’s various weapons. My favourite?
Is to simply be more human…