Liquor Industry Should Try Harder.

I get one almost every day, a press release for another new distilled spirits product. It doesn't matter if it's whiskey, tequila, rum or vodka. After a few words about why this is the most wonderful, delicious and prestigious new product ever, here come the recipes; the jazzy new cocktails, created perhaps by some celebrity mixologist.

Everybody today is pushing a new cocktail, or five. Each is promoted for about two seconds, then discarded for the next set. Often the drinks require exotic ingredients you don't have and bizarre processes you don't understand. (Fat washing, anyone?) Maybe they have clever names. Who can tell? Who can even take them all in? They're yesterday's news before you even finish reading them.

This is not a rant against cocktails. Cocktail culture is obviously still going strong. Consumers are still drinking cocktails and many still enjoy going up to their favorite bartender and saying, "what's new?"

But the difference between "what's new" and "what's out there that I haven't heard about" has never been greater. There are now thousands of drinks you haven't heard about and, therefore, nothing is new.

The problem is that as a form of promotion it has become rote. The drinks industry has become over-dependent on new cocktails. I expect to start seeing them in the quarterly financials.

The volume of new recipes is so great that no matter how breathless the people hyping them are, it's almost impossible for any of the drinks to catch on and become a phenomenon. Everything is simply washed away by the next wave before any new drink can plant a root and the people who are breathless about cocktail #286,547 today will never mention it again. Tomorrow they will be be just as breathless about cocktail #745,682.

You don't have to be around for very long to discern the pattern.

As a form of promotion, cocktails have become perfunctory, and in marketing perfunctory means dead. You might as well just save your money and do nothing if this is the best you can do.

Legal restrictions make it unusually hard for alcohol beverages to promote so it's probably no surprise that so many marketers seem to have given up. Instead of giving up, try harder, be more creative, take some chances. Recognize that what once was daring no longer is. If you must do a cocktail, figure out a new way to deliver it. Instead of doing five, do one and figure a way to make it stick.

New drinks, like new products, need more than their existence to justify their existence. That's what good promotion is all about.

It's Swag Season.

‘Swag’ is a slang term for freebies given away to promote a product. The term does not encompass actual marketing support materials, such as brochures, nor free samples of the product itself, but it can be applied to just about everything else. Swag invariably is branded, meaning it is imprinted with the product’s logo.

The most common swag item probably is the t-shirt. Also common are pens, key chains, tote bags, and hats. The most common item specific to the booze business is glassware. Although most swag is inexpensive, just about anything can be considered swag if you slap a logo on it and give it away.

Swag has a long history in the booze business. While consumers get hats and t-shirts customers (i.e., bars and stores) get mirrors, clocks, cocktail shakers and pitchers, glassware, and ‘consumables’ such as napkins and coasters. Companies that make this stuff put out thick catalogs of possibilities and just about everything in those catalogs has been used at some point by a liquor company.

Although regulators have clamped down on it in recent years, I’ve seen televisions, patio furniture, coolers, and other fairly snazzy items used as trade gifts. USB drives have become common lately because they can also be used to deliver marketing information.

Writers and other ‘influencers’ get in on this too. We get included in much of what goes to the trade. Realistically, swag is mostly about getting your product or message a little extra attention and giving the recipient a reason to feel more fondly toward you. It’s ‘a little something’ intended to grease the wheels of commerce. Some people fret about undue influence but it’s hard to imagine many orders worth thousands of dollars hinge on who gives the nicest gifts. Trinkets and trash are all well and good but real bribes are still made in cash, under the table.

Fall is the industry’s big season for everything, including swag. Probably the nicest thing I’ve gotten is an iPod Shuffle from Jim Beam. The cocktail shaker I use came from Woodford Reserve. Until it finally stopped working my kitchen clock promoted Seagram’s Gin. I re-gift a lot of the stuff when I teach classes or do other events.

Most publications have policies about their staff writers accepting gifts and other consideration from producers. Independents like me have to use our own best judgment. A few years ago, one of the producers sent me and other writers a Visa gift card worth $200. This went too far for most of us and caused a considerable amount of consternation. Most either returned it or, as I did, donated it to a charity. The producer said it was a mistake and apologized.

A few years ago there was a big to-do about bloggers (not specifically in the booze business) who gave glowing reviews to anyone who sent them cool stuff. This was mostly a case of people who were brand new to the world of marketing and promotion getting carried away by the largesse. Most of us who write about this industry are pretty jaded and not easily influenced. I didn’t write this for purposes of disclosure but rather because I thought you might find it interesting, which is why I write and publish anything.

Jimmy Russell, Rock Star.

Bruce Schreiner does a good job covering the American whiskey business for AP. His article today describes how the master distillers of American whiskey have become like rock stars on the international circuit of whiskey festivals and other events. As usual with an AP story, you can find it on the web in about 5,000 places, but one of them is here.

More Knob

My post Tuesday attracted some attention at Beam Global. They wanted me, and you, to know that, "Knob Creek is a product of such quality and aged a full 9 years that demand has exceeded any imaginable supply forecast. We are now managing allocations very closely as we are product constrained and will certainly not be lowering price. We are doing everything possible not to gouge our loyal consumers, but in some key markets we have raised price and will continue to do so to control overall demand."

I specifically mentioned Knob Creek in Tuesday's post because sightings of higher prices on Knob were reported to me by several consumers in different markets around the country. My point then was that, historically, Beam has been one of the more aggressive companies at using short term promotional deals to gain floor stackings and drive volume. A few years ago, a brand like Knob didn’t have enough volume to make that worthwhile. Now it does.

Most companies will run promotional deals just after a price increase to take some of the sting out for regular customers. In saying that, I didn't intend a knock on Beam or Knob Creek. That's just good business, especially for building volume. Beam does that as well as any and better than most.

When the tight supply situation for well-aged bourbon was first developing, about two years ago, some industry leaders expressed concern to me that using price to control demand might be counter-productive, as it risked stifling the current boom. They suggested that allocation was a better solution. In fact, we're seeing a combination of allocation and price increases.

An argument can be made that American straight whiskey has long been underpriced. It certainly remains, at least for consumers within the USA, the best value in fine aged spirits.