Save Five Minutes
You’re busy, we’re busy. We get it. So here’s ‘How Brand Homes Expand Your Alcohol Marketing’ in four sentences or less:
When your brand home team shares their feedback data, demographic information, and purchase behavior with other teams (like brand marketing or distribution), they help the entire brand:
- Create more personalized experiences outside the brand home, like festivals, concerts, and more.
- Finally get that “right place, right time, right audience” marketing magic right more often with less guesswork.
- Show a clearer path for how the entire brand can grow and where in the world you should focus on next.
Want to save even more time and money? Check out how AnyRoad’s feedback AI, Pinpoint, can mean the difference between scaling and stagnation:
Dig Deeper
We all know the Clydesdales, and how could we not be fascinated by the ‘most interesting man in the world? Alcohol marketing has always been about making us feel; an emotional connection to a brand means better brand recall, after all.
But it’s also no secret that ads and digital marketing don’t go as far as they used to in a world filled with short attention spans and digital noise. And, with the SuperBowl, sadly, once a year, a good ad doesn’t get the same kind of water cooler conversation anymore. Unless you have a plan to go viral, your footprint is sporadic.
It’s not your imagination; for both brands and people in general, it’s become harder to connect.
Thankfully, breweries, distilleries, and wineries alike are seeing the immediate value of their brand homes (where consumers experience the brand instead of the brand going to the consumer).
Right now, a fair amount of the brand home community is on the same page. Brand homes:
- Earn immediate revenue from ticket sales & merchandise purchased on-site
- Get more eyes on your brand and what you stand for.
But that’s not all they can do.
When you zoom out from beyond the day-to-day, you can see a fuller picture of how each effort channels into your main goals. Brand homes aren’t any different; when you connect your consumer data with your alcohol marketing strategies, you gas up a whole new revenue engine.
Start the ignition, and let’s see where brand home teams can take us all.
The Power of Experiential Marketing in Alcohol Marketing
Let’s do a quick overview of the actual stats behind experiential marketing, from brand homes to ticketed and on-site consumer events.
Experiences have been a great tool for marketers these past few years, and it’s only growing from here. 9 out of 10 marketers say experiential marketing is important to their strategy.
We did a quick survey to see the industry’s thoughts and looked at the data from our platform of over 2 million consumer touch points.
One example of the type of data we collect and benchmark for our customers: who’s coming to brand homes?
The Numbers That Build Strategy
If you’re already looking at the big picture, the benefit of having these kinds of numbers from your brand home is pretty clear. But if you’re still unsure, we can explain.
At first glance, this looks brand home-specific. But when you widen the lens, you start to see the new opportunities for your marketing campaigns.
Knowing the average age of your brand home visitors leads to more personalization in your overall event strategy. For example, the fact that 31-40-year-olds are the main attendees at brand homes can mean that you double down on that success, planning events at which that demographic will likely be in order to gain broader awareness.
A recent study by Statista reveals that 30-44-year-olds attend music festivals the most frequently. You now know where to find the audience that’s most interested in visiting your brand home, and it’s likely many already know your brand and could use a little refresher to keep that brand loyalty (and your alcohol sales) going.
Or reverse that. Maybe you want a younger generation of drinkers to introduce your brand to. So, instead, you invest in ads or social campaigns that focus on driving that demo to your brand home to build up that foundation for deeper loyalty.
Two different experiences to consider, but one central theme.
From zip codes to purchase behavior and feedback, brand home guest data lies at the heart of your alcohol marketing.
Understanding Brand Homes When Marketing Alcohol
Brand homes may seem like a siloed investment. After all, if your brand home is in England, and you have global distribution, how do you get people there?
That’s why so many brand leaders think that digital marketing and old-school alcohol advertising are the way to go. There’s this belief that it gets more eyes, like investing in a commercial during the SuperBowl mentioned above or the FIFA World Cup.
However, when you reach a certain stage of brand growth, the experience is more important than the product. You’ll see a commonality between brands with heavy distribution and a large global presence: they have a well-respected brand home.
Successful Alcohol Marketing Strategies with Brand Homes
Successful alcohol marketing strategies are everywhere, but we look to the biggest brands worldwide for the best of the best.
Diageo - Johnnie Walker Princes Street
Let’s talk about Johnnie Walker (Diageo) and their famed brand home, Johnnie Walker Princes Street. Hear the language they use around it:
“We’re not just here for whisky drinkers, we’re here for those looking to try something new. Come on in to Johnnie Walker Princes Street for five-star tours, immersive tastings, rooftop bars, astonishing views of Edinburgh Castle, expertly crafted cocktails, locally sourced cuisine, an outstanding store, and amazing spaces you can hire, all in one unique building right in the heart of Scotland’s capital.”
By using personalization, they learn what their consumers prefer, while their guests get to try an entire range of new products. With that memory in mind, when their target audience comes across the Johnnie Walker alcohol branding, they’ll be more likely to buy. And any marketing campaigns, whether digital or live, will continue to nurture loyalty through the nostalgia of their one-to-one experience at the brand home.
AnyRoad actually powers Johnnie Walker Princes Street’s booking process and surfaces experience insights, enabling them to deliver an entire end-to-end experience that doesn’t sacrifice their brand.
The Macallan Estate - Cirque Du Soleil
The Macallan Estate is known for its hospitality, from high-luxury dining to walks through the three tiers of tours and tasting experiences. However, it goes a step further with a 200th anniversary ticketed event at their brand home:
“Welcome to an experience in which we come together with Cirque du Soleil to create a theatrical experience that is at once bespoke, enchanted and unforgettable. This collaboration is specifically inspired by a shared respect for creativity and reverence for the natural world.”
The Macallan Estate defines luxury as exclusivity, with listening to their consumers at the forefront. With this direct feedback and their own brand values, they can better target partnerships that bring The Macallan Estate to life. Their reverence for nature and artistry makes sense with a Cirque Du Soleil show around the same themes.
Rethinking the Silo
There are so many marketing channels to bring together that sometimes it feels like repairing a fishing net. If you don’t have the right tool, you’ll lose a lot of fish.
Let’s go through those holes we can sew up one by one.
Guest Feedback Is Consumer Feedback
Brand homes get feedback from their guests all the time. Sometimes, it’s complaints about things the operator can’t control, like the rain or construction next door. But sometimes, it’s exactly what you need to inform your marketing campaigns.
From a day-to-day level, collecting and analyzing guest feedback makes sense, but from a brand growth perspective, it even seems a little in the weeds. But, understanding who your consumers are, what they care about, and their behaviors can give you a solid understanding of your target audience.
Brand home feedback surveys and even the data collected during the booking process itself can uncover the right insights to guide your marketing strategy. You just need a way to analyze all of the data you’re collecting.
That’s where AI comes into play. You know, the thing everyone’s talking about nonstop that’s changing the way we live and work? When brought together and analyzed with an AI platform, you can see the patterns emerge with the most common positive and negative themes.
Using that feedback brand-wide can lead to smarter spend and more targeted marketing campaigns.
Take The Brand Home On The Go
Brand ambassadors and marketing used to be all about trade advocacy, where your team’s main focus was getting bartenders to stock your brand and get those bottles prominently on shelves. Now, brand ambassadors are all about consumer events.
Part of the appeal of an event is you’re taking your brand home on the go, meeting consumers where they’re at. Alcohol brands that are working to expand consider how their experiences are linked to their brand, keeping the same messaging and a standard across the board. They need to reach the consumer’s environment in a consistent way.
For this hole in the net to be closed, you need a central line of sight into what’s happening, when, and where — the big thing to be concerned with is consistency.
If you’re taking your experiences on the road, you have a few balls to keep in the air, like knowing:
- What events you’re sending out in addition to your brand home
- What the different target markets are doing
- Consistent metrics, measurements, and KPIs
Market by market or agency by agency, you have one place where you start to understand different pieces and compare them. Who needs more training, or where’s working best?
Final Thoughts
Alcohol marketing can be complex, with moving parts that never seem to align the way you need them. Your visibility is limited when you’re looking at a global experiential strategy and your teams aren’t talking or sharing what they’ve learned.
Brand homes can affect so much of how you consider your digital marketing, social media presence, distribution channels, and even what kind of consumer events you put on.
When all your teams work together and have access to consumer insights, you can scale faster and find your target market more easily and with less spending.
So we’re back again to connections; it’s still hard to connect. But brand homes make it easier.
