WSWA 2009

I’m at the airport ruminating on this year’s WSWA. It was mentioned that there were about 200 fewer attendees than in years past and that companies like Southern Wine and Spirits only brought one or two folks from each state. Add to that the recent wide scale layoffs at the big suppliers, and I expected more doom and gloom in the air. But in spite of that it was still a busy and lively affair and the general mood was upbeat. New brands, new growth, new relationships, new opportunities.

The traffic at the exhibition booths was pretty good. I saw a bunch of repeat brands, but not nearly as many new tequilas or vodkas as we’ve seen in years past. They had the wine section separated from the spirits and it was poorly signed and at the end of the hall, so traffic was very light. Were I an exhibitor I’d be asking for a refund.

Most of the business at WSWA gets conducted in the suites and in the hallways among folks who are already doing business together, so we often see a lot of newbie suppliers coming to the show thinking it’s like VinExpo or the London show. It’s not.

I asked most of the exhibitors why they were there, and uniformly the response was to find an importer and distributor. There is very little awareness that WSWA attendees are not at the show for the purpose of finding new brands. The good news is that each of them is a prospective attendee for the USDC…we put it on to help people just like them figure out the right way to crack the US Drinks market.

US Drinks Conference
We had a mini USDC session attended by about 20 folks with a few participants who had attended in the past. Our goal was to get feedback on our agenda and format for this year, and it was very successful. The conference will be held in NY on Oct. 13/14 this year and details are at www.usdrinksconference.com. I was pleased to get a commitment from Rob Cooper of St. Germain to participate in the spirits panel. And I got some positive feedback from Gary Vaynerchuk of www.WineLibraryTV.com fame that he might speak as well…I saw him at the Boston Wine Expo and he is a tsunami of fresh air in an industry that needs some shaking up.

We’re also doing well in sponsorships for this year’s event with almost all of last year’s sponsors reupping including Just-Drinks, Beverage Media, Nixon Peabody, and Western Carriers. Also coming on board as sponsors this year are JF Hillebrand and Drinks International Magazine.

Ecommerce
We’ve been working to develop ecommerce solutions for many of our clients and have been spending a lot of time analyzing the current options including Amazon.com. Tom Wark of SWRA and Fermentation recommended I talk to the folks at the Inertia Beverages (www.intertiabev.com) and I spent some time at their suite and think they have a great concept. I still have to do some digging to understand it better but it sounds like an interesting option for both direct to consumer sales and direct to trade (e.g. supplier to restaurant) .

Social Media Marketing

I spoke to a lot of folks about the work we’re doing in Social Media Marketing and while our industry might be a few years behind the times, it is catching on. Lots of interest in the subject coupled with an acknowledged lack of understanding of what it is, how to use it and what it can do. We now have two people working full time on SMM plus me, and are looking to hire and train a third as our business expands. I was telling folks about the US Wine Bloggers Conference and the European Wine Bloggers conference, and I think they’ll both become significant events. I’m bummed I can’t go to the former because I’ll be in Greece on vaca, but Laurie Tadayon, our new wine SMM manager will be representing us.

For those of you interested in some examples of social media marketing tools, you should pull up a stool at the bar and check out the Thursday Drink Night event at http://www.mixoloseum.com/barstool.html on Thursday, April 30 at 7PM

I also saw Ann Tuennerman who runs Tales of the Cocktail (who was seriously engaged in the tasting competition) and I’m looking forward to attending that in July where I’m on the blog panel discussion with Paul Clarke (www.cocktailchronicles.com) and Jeffrey Morgenthaler of the eponymous blog. Cyril Necker who produces Girl liqueur was also there…I think that product is a grand slam home run just waiting for the right entity to recognize it.

And to add a bit of “aren’t I cool” to this post, Bill Earle lf NABI invited me to join him on a U.S. government sponsored trade trip to Georgia (the country, not the state). The timing is lousy though…I’m going to be in Austria on a Wine Summit tour for the Austrian Wine Marketing Board the next week and can’t really justify being out of the country for that long. Sphere: Related Content

Alice Feiring visits Simsbury

I had just finished Alice Feiring's book, "The Battle for Wine and Love: or How I Saved the World from Parkerization" and was looking forward to meeting her on Wednesday at the Darcy and Huber tasting. D & H are a new import company bringing in wines from the Vienna region of Austria. So boy was I surprised to find out that Alice was speaking right in my little home town of Simsbury CT this very weekend. I usually have to schlepp down to NY for most wine events, and having Alice in Simsbury was a bonus on a bonus.
For those of you not familiar with her, Alice is a proponent of "Natural Wines" meaning wines made with little or no technical intervention using tools such as Microoxygenation, designer yeasts and the like. She's also gained some notoriety for her interest in biodynamic winemaking, though her focus is on the broader philosophy of natural wines. She is also the author of Veritas in Vino blog and a well respected freelance wine writer.
Alice gave some readings from her books and the audience got to taste their way through some samples of American, French, Chilean and Argentinian examples of the genre. Sphere: Related Content

Blogging, Forums and Journalism: Compare and Contrast

There's a fascinating thread going on at www.drvino.com regarding some apparently heavy handed editing at The Wine Advocate Bulletin Board edited by Mark Squires.
Schadenfreude acknowledged, but there's a legitimate debate here about journalism in blogs and forums/bulletin boards...do the same rules apply? And I'm talking not just about the core question of journalistic integrity and ethics, but the clear differentiation between fact and opinion. I posted a comment in the thread posing the question and I'm thinking about asking it again at the Tales of the Cocktail seminar I'm participating in...it'll be interesting to get feedback from real people as well as the blognoscenti.

I'm conflicted, how about you? Sphere: Related Content

Liquid Visits to Greece, Italy and France

It's been a whirlwind past few weeks with a focus on the wine business. And as we all so often remark, it's a small world and we ran into a bunch of folks we've had the pleasure of working with and meeting over the years. My wife Susan and I attended an enjoyable Saturday afternoon wine tasting Seminar at Bar Boulud in NY presented by Sophia Perpera of All About Greek Wines and hosted by sommelier Michael Madrigale. Daniel Boulud showed up for a sip and the event was also attended by Charles Curtis, MW, who is the North American head of wine sales for Christie's and whom I met at Vino 2009. Also stopping by was Michael Lawrence, COO of the Boulud empire.

The history and heritage of Greek wines is packed with fascinating stories...like the unique way Assyrtiko grapes are grown in Santorini...it's so windy on the caldera slopes that they train the vines into baskets with the grape bunches draped on the inside and the leaves on the outside. The vines end up so long that they have to restart the vines by burying cuttings adjacent to the mother vine every 75 years or so. Some of the vines are reputed to be more than 500 years old. After the tasting we had a fabulous evening of conversation, mezes (Greek tapas) and wine with Sophia and her husband George Athanas. Chef Michael Psilakis joined us for an hour and explained the concept of his new wine bar at Anthos.

And last night Meg Casey joined me for an evening of entertainment, great food and fine Italian wines presented by old friend Filippo DiBelardino of Castello Banfi. Philip is an original in the industry and unique in his ability to educate with humor...think Dom DeLouise with an MW. Sponsoring the event was Brescome Barton and we had a nice talk with John Goldstein, CEO and his son Seth who runs one of BB's four divisions. John used to be a neighbor of ours in Simsbury.

The prior week Jeff and I attended a dual Bordeaux event in NY "Today's Bordeaux" and Rive Droite de Grands Vins de Bordeaux. It was the first chance I had to taste wine en primeur, an interesting experience, but I really must say I'm not too sure my palate can appreciate what I was tasting. The Today's Bordeaux side of the show presented 100 wines between $8 and $35...part of the CIVB program to educate Americans that Bordeaux isn't all Grand Cru's...they have dozens of Chateaux producing affordable wines that exhibit terroir and are produced for current consumption. Sphere: Related Content

Six Myths of Social Media Marketing, with a note on costs.

Here's a great piece from by B.L. Ochman who writes the Whatsnextblog on Six Myths of Social Media Marketing. She's really on point with what we've found to be common misunderstandings of SMM. I think her reference numbers on costs are a bit high, at least for our industry, but I can see how they would apply to broader CPG categories. I've edited my post at her request and suggest you go to Business Week to read the whole piece. In case you don't want to read the original article, here is my summary of the key takeaways:

-SMM isn't an option, it's a required marketing tool.
-SMM requires funding, it can't be a budget footnote
-SMM can have immediate results, but takes time to deliver real value.
-Building traffic has to be a core component...it won't happen on its own
-Monitor, measure, manage...SMM without a rigorous and informed analysis and reporting component is not only wasteful, it tells your visitors you're not listening.

And one point not mentioned in this piece is the importance and utility of new software to monitor, measure and manage. It's not cheap, averaging about $2,000/month for user access, but extraordinarily useful for getting maximum use out of a SMM program. You can get by in a very tightly defined marketplace with a limited number of sites in the conversation...but once you get above 50 or 60 sites, it becomes impossible to monitor them all "by hand."

For companies, resistance to social media is futile. Millions of people are creating content for the social Web. Your competitors are already there. Your customers have been there for a long time. If your business isn't putting itself out there, it ought to be.

But before you take the plunge, bear in mind the many myths that surround social media.

1. Social media is cheap, if not free. Yes, many of the tools that can be employed in social media marketing are free to use. However, integrating these tools into a corporate marketing program requires skill, time, and money. The budget for an effective social media marketing campaign begins at $50,000 for two to three months.

Building a site that incorporates interactivity, allows user-generated content, and perhaps also includes e-commerce doesn't come cheap from anyone who knows what they are doing. That takes skill, experience, and money.

As a rule, a $50,000 to $100,000 budget can cover the creation of a simple multimedia microsite that becomes the center of an online community. Add in some widgets to help distribute the content and form a credible group on Flickr, Twitter, or Facebook and other networking groups to enhance the community aspect of the campaign.

A high-yield, highly targeted blog advertising campaign to kick off and support the program will cost an additional $25,000 to $100,000 a month. Advertising through Google's AdWords, e-mail support, co-registration, and other tools that drive traffic would be additional costs.

2. Anyone can do it. A surfeit of whiz kids and more experienced marketers are claiming to be social media experts and even social media gurus.

A successful social media campaign integrates social media into the many elements of marketing, including advertising, digital, and PR. Opinion and theory are no match for experience, and the best social media marketers now have...experience incorporating interactivity, blogs, forums, user-generated content, and contests into online marketing (Ed. Note: and SEO and search marketing expertise)

Video contests by companies hoping for viral buzz and Google juice are as plentiful as mosquitoes on a humid summer night. But, like their insect counterparts, most video contests suck.

3. You can make a big splash in a short time. Sure, sometimes a social media campaign can produce substantial and measurable results quickly.

Social media is great if you're already a star, but that doesn't happen overnight....

ZapposChief Executive Tony Hsieh, whose company has millions of customers who are evangelists for the great service that built the brand, quickly became a Twitter star, with more than 32,000 followers. When Dell, JetBlue Airways, the Chicago Bulls, and other love-'em-or-hate-'em brands joined Twitter, they immediately developed huge followings.

4. You can do it all in-house. Wrong! You need strategy, contacts, tools, and experience—a combination not generally found in in-house teams, who often reinvent the wheel or use the wrong tools.

5. If you do something great, people will find it. Quite simply, that never was true. Until you can drive traffic to your social media effort, you've got a tree falling in the forest, heard only by those standing nearby. A great number of tools can drive traffic, including StumbleUpon, Digg, and Twitter, but nothing works better than word of mouse—one friend telling another, "Hey look at this!"

6. You can't measure social media marketing results. You can use a variety of methods, including mentions on blogs and in media; comments on the content; real-time blog advertising results, and click-throughs to your company Web site. You can get very precise statistics from a variety of sites, including Google Analytics among others. (Ed note: add in a skilled,experienced resource that can analyze and interpret those numbers and you have an extremely powerful real time, behavior based market research tool.)


And I'd add a post script quote from Will Rogers..."It ain't braggin' if you done it." Sphere: Related Content

Brouhaha in the Blogsophere

My oh my! This week we witnessed a blogger blitz of a social media marketing effort gone awry. The short version of the story is that a competitive absinthe brand hired a PR agency who evidently didn't understand how to work with bloggers. They made some egregious mistakes (cloaked spam) and were taken to task by a "murder" (to borrow the descriptor of a group of crows) of bloggers.

Significantly, many of the bloggers gave a shoutout to BAT as well as several other agencies and companies that are doing social media marketing the RIGHT way. (Thank you...we appreciate the vote of confidence!)

There's a lesson here for marketers in the Internet age. Invest the time to really understand the new media, how it works and how it's different from the old. But if you're not going to do that, make sure you conduct due diligence on the resources you hire to do it for you. In this case, the damage done far outweighed the planned short term gain.

Spam and subterfuge are not workable strategies...transparency and contribution to the conversation are. Promoting a brand commercially is part of the process, but it must be in a way that's beneficial to all and most importantly the end reader. When you game a blogger, you also insult their reader...who is your prospective customer. To paraphrase David Ogilvy, "She's not a moron, she's your wife."

You can check out the brouhaha here (and be advised, this was a passionate subject...some of the language isn't fit for children):

Cocktailnerd
Sloshed!
ArtofDrink
ScofflawsDen
DrinkPlanner
TraderTiki
Two at the Most
An Exercise in Hospitality
A Mountain of Crushed Ice
Cocktail Chronicles
Looka
A Jigger of Blog
Dear PR Flack Sphere: Related Content

Wine Library TV and Gary Vaynerchuk

I sat in on a seminar Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV put on at the Boston Wine Expo last weekend. Some folks are put off by Gary's "in your face" style, but once you get past the personality quirks, his message is definitely on point:

--Wine is "broken" in America
--People want to try and buy new stuff...new varietals from different countries
--Ignore the pretentiousness of wine, and go with what you smell, taste and like...don't let someone dictate your tastes...or vocabulary...to you.

I particularly liked the way he drives that message home not with a lecture but by his actions. After pouring the wine he tells his audience to give it a "sniffy sniff". He's not trying to be cute; it's his way of saying, "Hey, let's not take this too seriously." Then "Give it a Whirl" means " Go ahead and taste it." but once again with the implicit caveat that it's just a glass of wine, not the coming of the Messiah.

And oh yes, he's got biases...just like the rest of us. He's against "Fruit Bombs" and the "Oak Monster" but definitely a proponent for emerging varietals and countries such as Portugal, Greece, Chile and Austria. I particularly liked the way he got Jancis Robinson to validate his pursuit of unpreteniousness in Episode#568 where he tasted an Assyrtiko from Santorini along with two other wines.

Botton line for those of you in the business...Gary's arguably a more important influencer than Robert Parker, and most certainly among the "millennials" who are just now discovering wine as part of their adult lives. He speaks to them in their language. Are you doing the same? Sphere: Related Content

Vino 2009

I had the honor of speaking on a panel discussion at last week's Vino 2009 event in New York on "Vintners' Access to the American Wine Market." (That's me hiding behind Lynn Walding.) Not surprisingly, the issue of direct-to-consumer shipments was the key point of debate. As we all know, distributor consolidation has exacerbated the situation further leaving few options for smaller producers, many of whom were among the 250+ exhibiting at Italian Trade Commission-sponsored event.

Tom Wark of SWRA (Specialty Wine Retailers Association) eloquently voiced his mantra that there ought to be a level playing field for consumers, as well as suppliers, distributors and retailers. The U.S. may be on the brink of becoming the largest wine market in the world, but the reality is that consumers in many states don't have access to more than a fraction of the wines currently imported into the U.S. because of the three-tier system. His point of view was countered by Jim Rowland of WSWA who reinforced the reasons why the current 3-tier system works. Lynn Walding who leads the Iowa State Alc. Bev. division gave what to me was the most compelling argument as to why the system is unlikely to change...money. The system may be archaic, dating back 75 years to repeal, but the grandfathered entities...Control States and distributors.. are powerful forces with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. John Beaudette of MHW addressed the complicated registration process suppliers need to be familiar with to even get samples into the country.

One solution I've been a proponent of is e-commerce which is a way producers who can't get on the physical shelf, can at least get on the virtual shelf of many retail stores that have e-comm sites. And in spite of a couple of state law changes in MA, IL and KY to the contrary, I think it's a solution that ultimately may undermine the three tier system itself.

So stay tuned...with Amazon.com's wine initiative coming down the pike, the argument is definitely going to heat up. Sphere: Related Content

Defining Social Media Marketing

More and more clients are coming to us for Social Media Marketing Services, and I've found there's a lot of misunderstanding on just what Social Media is, and how to categorize and define the components.

Simply stated, Social Media are online places where conversations take place among people with similar interests. And those conversations can in the form of words, images, video and audio. Social Media Marketing (Other names for it include Word of Mouth Marketing, 1 to 1 Marketing, Consumer or User Generated Content, etc.) is really just a subset of marketing...marketing that takes place in digital form over the Internet within social media.

We recognize five flavors of SMM and I've highlighted the key points that differentiate them:

1. Blogs: Blogs are essentially a diary with the point of view of one person and reflect their interest, bias and "voice"...Less of a conversation, more of a monolog. Examples include CocktailNerd and Fermentation.

2. Sites, Forums, Wikis: These are sort of like a sister to Blogs...they are conversations that are moderated and usually without a bias or point of view. On the spirits side, recipes drive the category, on the wine side it's ratings, reviews and food and wine pairings. Examples include Cocktails.About.com and Wine Library TV Forum.

3. Social Networks: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Wine 2.0 are examples. The conversation on social networks is not moderated and it takes place between and among like minded individuals who link to each other as "friends" and through "groups".

4. Search: Finding information online based on other people's searches. In our world search is conducted on general sites such as Google or vertical sites such as Wine-searcher.com. Search comes in two flavors as well...organic and paid (aka PPC, Google AdWords/AdSense).

5. E-Commerce: ...buying and selling stuff online. OK, it's not really SMM, but it is a critical digital marketing strategy and commerce is conversation. It applies to consumer sites such as BevMax as well as trade sites like BevAccess

It's that simple. Sphere: Related Content

Amazon and wine e-commerce

As many of you are aware, Amazon.com is getting into the wine ecommerce business and I've stated publicly that they are going to be a game changer. Their corporate business model is to be a mile deep and a mile wide in terms of selection, and then add the "if you liked this you might want to try that" recommendation function.

So here are two observations on why I think this is going to be so significant.
1. Lots of choice, personal assistance in selection. Assuming that Amazon is going to apply the same strategies with wine as they do with books, it represents the online equivalent of a knowledgeable wine shop salesperson helping an individual customer, with the added twist of already knowing what they've purchased previously. So they'd be complementing an extraordinarily broad inventory with a function that makes selection personalized and easy. Pretty cool concept.
2. Inclusion vs. exclusion. The existing wine marketing convention in the U.S. is pretty much governed by a philosophy of excluding, rather than including brands. There's a physical limitation on shelf space in retail stores and in restaurants. So it's sort of like a zero sum game...if I put this brand in, something has to come out, so I have to know a priori that the new bottle will sell more than the one it's replacing. Net result...it's tough for new brands to crack the U.S. market. So here comes a solution that turns that inside out. The "long tail" strategy means there there is no limit on shelf space...it's "virtual" on the web, even if it's real in the warehouse.

So my recco is for brand owners is...when Amazon knocks on your door welcome them with open arms. And for retailers...the challenge will be to differentiate yourself in "in person" service and timeliness that rivals what Amazon can deliver electronically. Sphere: Related Content

ATL, BTL, What TL is going on!?

We've had a busy week of meeting with prospective clients and a couple of trends seemed to emerge...

1. Growing recognition of the decline in relative importance of "traditional" or ATL (Above the Line) advertising. Suppliers are recognizing that, especially with new product introductions, advertising is a pretty blunt instrument, and that targeted, measureable tools are more important.
2. Increasing awarness and interest in BTL (Below the Line)tools, specifically Word of Mouth or Social Media Marketing.
BAT's developed some special expertise in the Social Media Marketing space including tools to rank and quantify the relative influence of individual bloggers, and new programs that are "win/win" feed bloggers' needs for content and samples, and brand needs for awareness and links.

Of particular note is the TDN or Thursday Drink Night program developed by Gabriel Szazko of Cocktail Nerd and Rick Stutz of Kaiser Penguin. Check out the coverage of Leblon's sponsorship at Mixoloseum. Sphere: Related Content

Hartford Courant Features BAT

The Hartford Courant ran a nice piece on our work with Absinthe Mata Hari

Avon-Based Company Helping To Distribute Absinthe, Once Banned In U.S.
By KENNETH J. ST. ONGE | Special to the Courant
November 13, 2008

Absinthe is an herbal-based liquor from France that until last year had been outlawed in the United States. (PATRICK RAYCRAFT / HARTFORD COURANT / October 9, 2008)


Vincent van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso all drank absinthe, a supposedly hallucinogenic liquor popularized in Europe in the late 1800s. But until last year, absinthe had been banned for nearly a century in the United States.

Now, two former executives of Heublein Inc. — once headquartered in Hartford and now part of Diageo, the world's largest liquor, beer and wine firm — are working with an Austrian-based beverage maker to help import and distribute a new domestic variety of the licorice-flavored, translucent green beverage in the hope that it will gain favor among American mixed-drink lovers.

To do so, Steven Raye and Jeff Grindrod, managing partners of Avon-based Brand Action Team, have tapped an informal network of several dozen former Heublein colleagues, all of whom have a different expertise and their own contacts in certain areas of the country.

So far, that recipe has been a major boost to Brand Action Team clients looking to sell their products through the often confusing, state-regulated distribution system.
"We're a small company — there are basically four of us — but through this virtual network of former Heublein [colleagues] we're a much bigger company, and we're able to do the same things as the bigger guys," Grindrod said.

Brand Action Team was born out of that attitude of collaboration. Grindrod and Raye left Heublein in the late '90s and worked on various beverage-industry products until they teamed up formally in 2005 to do marketing and other services for overseas beverage companies looking to gain a foothold in the U.S.

Over the last few years, their clients have include Ukrainian vodka companies and importers of cachaça, a rum-like Brazilian liquor made from sugar cane, and pisco, a brandy-like Peruvian liquor made from grapes.

The absinthe Grindrod and Raye are working with is called Mata Hari, a bohemian style liquor that differs from the French-style absinthes that are the only others available domestically.

Absinthe is in its own category as a drink, the two said, having a special aura of mystery and infamy. Absinthe is distilled from the herb Artemisia absinthium, or wormwood, that contains trace amounts of an oily compound called thujone, which is believed to possess mildly hallucinogenic qualities, although that has never been established. Regardless, absinthe enthusiasts claim that the drink induces "clarity," and rumors about its mind-altering effects have enhanced its scandalous reputation.

One story holds that Van Gogh was imbibing absinthe when he lopped off part of his ear. That type of publicity is difficult to buy.

That might be one reason Brand Action Team was able to get Mata Hari to market in 32 states over a 60-day period. That's unheard of, Raye said. Normally that would take 18 months or longer.

"It speaks to the demand for this drink," Raye said.

Still, it will take more than a buzz factor to support the long-term sales of absinthe. To get it established, Grindrod and Raye say the drink must possess a quality all widely drunk American liquors share: mixability.

"We live in a cocktail culture, and Mata Hari is far more mixable that the French-style absinthes," Grindrod said.

Part of the strategy is to develop new drink recipes that call for the $57-a-bottle Mata Hari, and Grindrod and Raye have been working with bartenders in Connecticut to come up with new ideas. They include the Hemingway (with champagne), the Bohemian Mojito (with equal parts absinthe and rum) and the Courtesan (a shot containing absinthe, whisky and lime juice). Sphere: Related Content

Steve Raye to speak at Vino 2009

I've been invited to speak at Vino 2009 in New York on January 26. It's billed as the first industry convention of Italian wine in the U.S. and will be held during Italian Wine Week Jan 23-27. I'll be on a panel discussion giving my point of view on new tools marketers are using to promote wine including Social Media Marketing and leveraging e-commerce opportunities. The panel wil be moderated by Bill Earle, President of NABI, and joining me on the panel will be wine PR guy extraordinaire and Tom Wark who also authors the blog Fermentation.

Sphere: Related Content

U.S. Drinks Conference 2008 An Outstanding Success

This was the second year that we’ve put on the event in London and this year we had a larger number of delegates from even more countries. The feedback we’ve gotten from attendees was overwhelmingly positive with frequent comments on the level of insight provided and comprehensiveness content.

The roster of speakers this year included some of the top executives in the American Drinks market including Rudy Ruiz, EVP of Southern Wine and Spirits, Vincent O’Brien, Senior Counsel at Nixon Peabody, John McDonnell, COO of Patrón Spirits, Bill Earle, President of the National Association of Beverage Importers, Roy Danis of AV Brands, and conference co-organizer John Beaudette, President of MHW Ltd. The subject matter included case histories and lessons learned by brands that have been successful in the U.S. and a wealth of data on the American market structure. Jeff Grindrod, Managing Partner at Brand Action Team, and Mike Ginley, President of Next Level presented results of “hot off the presses” research on consumer trends and preferences.

Several themes recurred through the conference including the impact of the global financial crisis on the Drinks industry, aligning distributor and supplier expectations, and the shift in marketing strategies toward more online and non-traditional spending.

Impact of Financial Crisis

“The economic crisis we’re going through is certainly having an impact on the business, but the research results clearly demonstrated that the U.S. beverage alcohol industry is recession-resilient,” commented Ginley of Next Level.
Grindrod added that “we see continued growth in volume and revenue, albeit slowing, and a shift in consumption from on premise to off premise. This is very timely data since much of the survey was completed in the two weeks preceding the conference.
Perhaps the most interesting thing we found is that for those folks going out to restaurants, the last thing they tend to cut out is the cocktail, wine or beer part of the meal,” he noted.

Aligning Expectations

Ruiz of Southern Wine and Spirits gave some well received advice to suppliers looking to export their brands to the U.S. “The key to a successful relationship between supplier and distributor is in aligning expectations,” he stressed. “When presenting new brands to Southern, expect to come in with a three year plan including a detailed one year operating plan with realistic expectations on case volume. It is more worthwhile to consider launching in smaller markets, proving your success with programming that demonstrates it’s repeatable.” According to Ruiz, the best demonstration of brand traction is when they see bars and retailers calling Southern and asking for the brand.

Evolution of Internet as Strategic Tool

Steve Raye of Brand Action Team brought home the importance of new online tools such as blogs and social media marketing for brand building. “It’s a noble goal to get visitors to your brand website, but at the end of the day, it’s more important to get your content out to where prospective customers already are spending their time…reading blogs, searching for recipes, reading comments on wines that other consumers have posted. Indeed, research shows that 65% of consumers read reviews online before purchasing a product.”

The US Continues As The Worlds Best Beverage Alcohol Market For New Brands

As John Beaudette summarized at day’s end, imports continue to drive growth across all beverage alcohol categories. “Considering the emergence of Eastern Europe, the Far East, and the rest of the world, we recognize that suppliers have many options in terms of investing behind new or existing brands. We hope we’ve clearly demonstrated that America is still the primary destination you should target”. Sphere: Related Content

Pub Crawl London Style

We had the chance to connect with blogger Jay Hepburn of Oh Gosh who guided us on a pub crawl. Given the fact that we did this the night before the U.S. Drinks Conference, and that the average age of the crawlers was 55+, it's no surprise we were done after two accounts and 9:30PM. But we did get to visit Milk & Honey, which had been nominated for the cocktail bar in the world award at Tales of the Cocktail, as well as Montgomery Place which demonstrated extraordinary creativity in drink presenation. Sphere: Related Content