Connecting to the off-premise consumer and retail buyer is arguably the hardest part of the alcohol business.
“We have three tiers, so my message has to go from our brains, through our distributor, and into the bodega before speaking to a consumer,” said Senior Direction of Marketing for Jack’s Abby, Rob Day.
The Massachusetts-based brewery has developed the “Brain to Bodega” strategy with the idea to build meaningful and consistent communication tools at all tiers to ensure the best chance of a proper message reaching the consumer in an uncontrolled environment.
“Traditional marketing promotes the ”4 Ps” (product, price, place, promotion) and we need to be absolute on those in-house and do our best to educate each tier through the process,” Day told Brewer for a story that will run in the November/December issue dealing with both online and retail marketing reach. “We then back that up with all of our direct-to-consumer communication to support the complete narrative. This is a work in progress and will continue to develop over the years.”
AleSmith has focused its rebrand on being aesthetically appealing to a broader demographic, explained President Brandon Richards, especially with so many choices available to younger drinkers that are now exploring beverages other than beer.
“It’s also important to have secondary point of purchase signage and materials on displays to tell a story and inform the beer drinker of our brand,” Richards added.
Various breweries from across the country also shared some marketing insights that they found best suited them with Brewer.
Concise Consistency
Trevor Self, the Marketing Manager for MadTree, said that keeping it simple, and being recognizable and consistent is a key for retail and off-premise.
“Put yourself in the consumer’s shoes, how often are you stopping to read a whole bunch of text on a poster when grocery shopping or picking up a few things,” he asked. “You only have a slight time period to get your message across with a poster, display, and such.
“Making sure your message is concise and compelling is key to building your brand while also creating excitement and trial.”
10/10 Rule
Getting the customer to look at your brand and products to make a sale is of course important and Urban Artifact Director of Brewing Operations Bret Kollmann Baker said the 10/10 rule is paramount.
“Does your product legibly stand out from 10 feet away in a sea of other brands if the customer is looking randomly for 10 seconds at the shelf,” he asked. “Rhinegeist excels at this.”
Baker added that Point of Sale merchandise is extremely helpful for this but it needs to be right next to your product.
“A random poster placement doesn’t do anything, but a shelf talker right above your core brand will lead to increased sales,” he said. “Focus on billboarding for your brands as well. More products closer together.”
Sales Staff Communication
The key is constant communication for the Toppling Goliath sales team, said Sarah Moellers, Marketing Manager.
”They are our eyes and ears, boots on the ground representatives out in the field,” she said. ”The more feedback we can get from them interacting directly with both on- and off-premise accounts, the better we are able to support them with marketing strategies that are tailored to each specific market.”
Short’s Brewing works with its sales team to learn insights into competition and opportunities that exist for new and different POS.
”What is best for our accounts is what’s best for us,” said Christa Brenner, Marketing Manager, ”so we look to our partners to determine product placement, incremental displays, and floor planning.”
Photo courtesy Jack’s Abby
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