As We Peer Into Our Crystral Kegs & Stills Trying to Forecast the New Year, We Can’t Ignore the Trends!
By Mark Colburn
Beer, wine and spirit sales are sagging due to reduced consumption, inconsistent tariffs that threaten many aspects of our industry, wholesaler consolidation and low consumer confidence. Combining these trends means that the battle for shelf and handle space will be frenetic. The fight for the consumer’s share of stomach will be equally challenging. As a craft beer wholesaler marketing director in a major metro, I sat through hundreds of supplier business plan meetings which typically begin in October. These next year plans were filled with new products and clearly absorbed a great deal of executive supplier attention. Herein lies the chink in your competitor’s armor.
Sitting on the opposite side of the supplier vs. distributor (I was the marketing director for one of the country’s largest craft, beer, cider, wine and spirits wholesalers) conference room table, I wondered how the fourth quarter seemed to be overlooked, or taken for granted by our large, medium and even small suppliers. Perhaps they were satisfied with the long summer’s results I mused during these marathon meetings?
This particular large supplier was presenting in mid-September hoping to get the “attention jump” on the rest of the supplier roster. As I sat there viewing slide #68 of their PowerPoint presentation I got an idea. Keep in mind my background is in the ad agency business…
As the one responsible for each month’s rather bulky sales plan (8-10 pages), I started looking for common denominators. It was easy. One of my brand managers even sarcastically coined his monthly supplier incentive as, “five bucks and a bag of chips.” I found that the vast majority of monthly sales incentives were alike – five dollars per Off Premise placement and slightly more for On Premise.
The volume incentive was equally similar as was the compensation for a new tap handle placement. As a believer in the “zig vs. zag theory” I recognized a unique opportunity for a supplier that wanted to get a bit creative.
Since it was still September I knew I had time to whip up something and get it agreed to…and funded. I also knew that Halloween had grown into a $12+ billion business. Moreover, anything to do with Halloween was fun. This seemingly obvious point is forgotten by so many businesspeople. Over my 15 years in this distributor position, I experimented with hundreds of fun incentives to assess their selling significance with a highly street smart, unionized and sizeable ON and Off Premise selling team.
Most succeeded while a few did not. The one I’m about to share with you shattered all volume and distribution expectations and was in my top three of all time. Although this incentive may not be applicable to your situation, the point is to inject creativity and fun into your brand. Where legal, you might even fine tune my incentive into a consumer or employee event that will garner results.
The Sam Adams Haunted House
By far the smartest executive I have ever met is Jim Koch. I first met him in Boston and later we rode together several times visiting key accounts throughout San Francisco. Mr. Koch had heard about some of my prior incentives, “Gordon Gekko’s Greed is Good,” “The Money Chamber” and “Broccolinchini” and probably thought I was thick as two short planks.
He could not deny the results, however. After procuring the necessary budget from Boston Beer and my team, I set out to create the most fun incentive ever launched around a Halloween theme. Thus the Sam Adams Haunted House was “built.” How can this help your business? Please read on…
In my career I’ve found that whenever “Fun” is used as a strategic denominator, the results are exponential. The Sam Adams Haunted House was created as a sales incentive “clutter buster.” The vast majority of supplier-side sales team incentives lacked even the most remote level of fun or creativity. The trend was to simply follow everyone else. The results were naturally proportional.
To clearly differentiate the Sam Adams brand from the rest of the big, medium and small brand pack I worked with my graphic designer to create a huge haunted house graphic (see pic inset). This graphic was brought into the Friday morning sales meeting, by yours truly, every Friday in October. If you’ve never been in a large, end-of-week, early morning sales meeting; you’re not missing much.
These can last several hours as supplier sales reps and managers stumble their way through unrehearsed, monotonous sales presentations. Now that I’ve shared the setting, picture this: The huge sales meeting room (60+ occupants) is now dark (all lights out and curtains pulled). The huge sales team is now watching and listening, wondering what is next. Suddenly a boom box blasts sounds of howling wolves, creaking doors, chains and screaming goblins throughout the cavernous room. I enter wearing a black cloak with the scariest mask you’ve ever seen holding a flashlight under my chin. I let out a screeching howl, “Welcome to the Sam Adams Haunted House!!!” From that second on, Sam Adams owns this major metro sales team.
To get to the Haunted House, the On and Off Premise sales teams competed weekly by making placements in their accounts. The salespeople with the most placements got a Friday morning trip to the house where they came up to the front of the room to select a scary graphic that I then flipped open (I had pre-trimmed these into little doors and marked dollar values for each that when combined kept us on budget) to reveal their winning cash prize.
The prizes ranged from $25-$250 so there was significant interest to earn a pick every Friday in October. This kept the incentive top-of-mind throughout the salesperson’s week. To determine who picked each Friday morning I came into the office very early to run VIP reports showing individual sales rep accomplishments. After reviewing the numbers I was able to announce the weekly winners by 7am.
Although this level of creativity (I admit it is a bit creepy but think of the audience – predominantly males aged 24-39) may not suit your personality or your brand, I must share with you that the sales volume and placement results shattered our wildest expectations.
The incentive was so popular that I repeated it for three or four years in a row. This incentive DOMINATED all other suppliers during the month of October. Further, it created momentum and top of mind awareness within one of the largest sales teams in the country.
This momentum carried the Sam Adams brand into the November and December holidays (supported by my “Santa Broccolinchini” incentive) where many brands concede this period opting to gear up for the New Year.
This fourth quarter incentive tandem provided Boston Beer with sales plan DOMINANCE for 8+ weeks. Further, it put their brand on a substantial downhill roll teeing up their annual business plan meeting where the incentives and their results were the first thing that everyone spoke about in the executive meeting room.
They really set the “fun tone” and paved the way for the coming year’s strategies and new items. The Sam Adams Haunted House is provided to you as an example of the synergistic results achieved when creativity is mixed with a large dose of fun. I use the term, “Fun-kifize” (an old Tower of Power tune) in my podcasts and recommend such to you.
If you don’t participate in wholesaler incentives try adjusting a version to your internal team or even at the consumer level. Perhaps a game could be played to earn trips to the haunted house to generate more consumer interest and traffic in your tap or tasting room?
Lastly, to dot the “I’s” I learned that Jim Koch was going to pay us a visit in November. I asked his team if I could interview him for 15 minutes and videotape the session. They agreed so I taped Mr. Koch and gave him the names of the biggest achievers from the Halloween incentive. I then edited the tape and played it during one of those long, boring Friday sales meetings.
The sales team loved hearing a luminary like Jim Koch give specific sales people “Atta boys” for their their outstanding performance. Just another example of adding legs to a creative idea to wring out even more benefit. Remember that people buy AND SELL for people and BRANDS that they like. Be THAT brand.
Happy Halloween!
About the Author
Mark Colburn has 35 years of experience in the beverage industry working primarily with craft beer and cider brands. He is the host and creator of the pod cast, “The Shinerunner Show” http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/shinerunner-ep18-dyno-ing-the-marketing-mix/ and author of the book, “Craft Beer Marketing & Distribution – Brace for SKUmeggedon.”
After earning his master’s degree in marketing, Mark went into the advertising agency business then into brand management. For 15 years he was the marketing director at a large California beer, cider, wine, and spirits wholesaler where he managed a brand team, experiential events, and multiple craft brands. Currently Mark works as a consultant and is available to chat about your brand opportunities at …
