Enhancing your Beer Marketing Strategy with Partnerships

By: Suzanne Henricksen

It can be hard to capture consumer attention in today’s digital age within the increasingly crowded and competitive craft beer industry. We live in a world of short attention spans, information overload, and the constant ding of gadgets begging us to look at something else. While there are many effective marketing strategies to help your brewery stand out in the digital landscape, sometimes it’s even more effective to bring a great marketing idea to life right at the shelf…particularly when it means partnering with another brand that your potential consumers already know and love. In these situations, one plus one can often add up to much more than two, benefiting both brands and helping your brewery grow in awareness and sales.

To do this, more and more breweries are starting to ink partnerships with companies to gain competitive advantage. Often, these collaborations involve parties that have nothing to do with beer, but everything to do with the brand’s values, character, and target consumers. These tend to be quite successful, partly due to the unique combinations of ideas. By success, we mean several factors: it could mean that both parties have profited from the partnership in terms of sales, or that the partnership has created buzz on social media or through publications, increasing awareness and consideration of the brands involved. Indicators such as likes, shares, comments, search queries, feature articles, increased production, and additional projects are used to gauge the reception and success of these beer partnerships. With that in mind, let’s look at a few examples of innovative campaigns that have helped craft beer brands stand out.

Muskoka Salty Caramel Truffle

Beer and ice cream…a match made in heaven. No? Well, this partnership between Ontario craft brewer Muskoka and ice cream maker Kawartha Dairy shows that it’s not as strange as it may seem.

This new brew was a bock-style beer inspired by Kawartha’s popular Salty Caramel Truffle ice cream. The beer had a milk chocolate flavor thanks to roasted malt, and was also infused with salted caramel for a unique taste. A can of this brew was only available for a limited time, which had Canadian craft beer fans scrambling to buy. The brand’s first Facebook post last February about the new product garnered over 500 likes, 118 shares, over 200 comments, and the attention of several publications in Canada.

Star Trek “Captain’s Holiday” Ale

Any product that is attached to a globally popular franchise has good odds of generating high sales. During the 2017 holiday season, Shmaltz Brewing Company launched its Star Trek themed ale, called Captain’s Holiday. The beer is tropical with hints of citrus. While the release was aimed to celebrate the franchise’s 30th anniversary, as reported in Food and Wine, it actually was not the brewery’s first Star Trek deal. Even before this release, they had already launched another Star Trek inspired beer called Symbiosis.

Both beer labels included images of the Starship Enterprise, which is one of Star Trek’s most beloved and recognizable icons. Even casual fans can identify the ship and franchise. This is why it’s often added to all sorts of Star Trek related media, for immediate recognition. This rule certainly applies to brands operating in niche markets, since they’ll be using the Star Trek name as a form of leverage. Suffice it to say, anything Star Trek touches seems to turn to gold. As of this writing, Shmaltz has released over six Star Trek-themed craft beers. Amidst their move back to a contract brewing model, they are most certainly holding onto this product line, which is a sure indication the partnership is lucrative for their brand.

Urban Underdog American Lager

Drinking for a cause? Great idea. Purina, the widely popular pet care brand is lending its name to one of Urban Chestnut’s brews called the Urban Underdog American Lager. Purina donated $3 to the Petfinder Foundation for every eight pack of the brew sold in St. Louis. To help market this partnership, Urban Underdog came up with a campaign called “Consider a Shelter Pet” incorporated into the brand’s packaging. The St. Louis Post Dispatch revealed that Purina planned to donate up to $50,000 so it could offer $50 subsidies toward pet adoption fees.

The campaign rolled out in August 2017 with Urban Underdog expanding distribution in St. Louis in 2018. With its continued distribution, it’s safe to say that the partnership is doing well for both sides. If you are looking for another reason to drink beer, you can consider finding a good home for pets a pretty awesome choice.

Are Partnerships Right For Your Brewery?

Depending on where you are in your brewery journey, marketing partnerships like the ones we’ve shared today can have a variety of benefits. For newer brands, they can put you on the map as a favorite new craft brewery. In these situations, make sure that you have a solid reputation for your own beers first and don’t jump into a marketing partnership too quickly.

For established breweries, partnerships can spread awareness to different audiences to bring in new fans. To find the right partnerships here, talk to your existing customers about what other activities and products they love. A rich pool of potential fans may be found enjoying a broad range of interest from hiking to a genre of movies or music to a certain style of food.

When thinking about collaborations with other brands, remember it is not only creativity and uniqueness that will get people’s attention; the partnership has to be relevant, in sync with recent trends, on brand, and have intrinsic value to your target consumer. As with all good marketing strategies, thinking about the 5Ws is critical…who, what, when, where & why. Then focus on how to actually execute the idea. Make sure you don’t overlook the power of partnering with smaller, local brands. We can’t all land deals with brands as big as Star Trek or Purina but, honestly, depending on your consumer base and brand, partnering with someone that big might not be the right move. So, make sure to focus on the potential value of the partnership for your customers and don’t get distracted by brand star power.

Pursuing these opportunities can be an effective and fun way to spread razor-thin craft beer marketing budgets to reach more people when done right. It’s also a great way to fund the innovative ideas that your brewer wants to explore and raise awareness for causes that are near and dear to the heart of your business. While this is only one of many marketing tactics to help grow brand awareness and sales, it’s an exciting one in today’s digital age since it comes to life tangibly at the point of purchase. And isn’t that what marketing is all about? Let’s raise a glass to working together so consumers find, buy, and enjoy more of your brews.

Contact Suzanne at The Crafty Caskor 510-316-4251

KNOCK, KNOCK! LIQUOR STORE AT YOUR DOOR IN 60 MINUTES OR LESS

By: April Ingram

Don’t want to leave the party to pick up the missing ingredients to make your signature cocktail or to try a new recipe? Wish you had options to save time, or you don’t want to head out into the elements to go pick up your favorite alcoholic beverages? Canadians can now enjoy greater options for their alcoholic beverage home delivery, including a wider selection of craft beverage products with Drizly.

In Canada, liquor laws are regulated by each province individually, and some have permitted home delivery of wine beer and spirits for decades. The original alcohol delivery service, Dial a Bottle, was taking orders by phone and delivering bottles before apps or even the internet existed. Today, the home delivery marketplace is flooded with options that make home delivery of alcohol nearly as easy as Uber Eats, and the competition is fierce, leading to lower delivery fees and extra service perks. E-Commerce companies are working with the complete inventory of local, leading liquor retailers and delivering them within 60 minutes to adults of legal drinking age at their homes and even to their offices.

Amazon for Liquor

Drizly, a pioneer and the world’s first and largest alcohol e-commerce marketplace is now launching their services in the city of Vancouver, the province of Alberta, and throughout 26 U.S. states. They’ve been called the “Amazon for Liquor” or “Uber Liquor,” and their approval to operate in Vancouver has been noted as quite the accomplishment, considering that legislative regulation has so far prevented the actual Uber from being allowed within the entire province. Drizly has already been serving consumers in parts of the neighboring province of Alberta for over two years.

Drizly works with local retailers, including Liquor Depot, to bring adults of legal drinking age a wide selection of beer, wine and spirits, with delivery in under 60 minutes through Drizly.com and the Drizly app.

By providing access to inventories from local retailers in each market, the service gives customers a wide selection of beer, wine and spirits at reasonable market prices. In addition to a wide variety of adult beverages, Liquor Depot’s range of popular soft drinks, juices, ice and other mixers, are also be available on the Drizly platform. Customers schedule a delivery or in-store pickup. The Drizly’s mobile app and website are deep wells of information, offering cocktail recipes, pro tips and popular adult beverage trends.

Delivery in Vancouver is a flat $4.99, and customers have to purchase a minimum of $20 worth of products from Liquor Depot and Liquor Barn to qualify for delivery.

Simplified Age Verification

Alcanna, formally known as Liquor Stores N.A. Ltd., is North America’s largest publicly traded alcoholic beverage retailer and includes a chain of more than 240 stores operating in Alberta, British Columbia, Kentucky and Alaska, with both Liquor Depot and Liquor Barn under its banner. They carry a vast selection of craft beers, ciders and spirits, some of which are not available in provincially run liquor stores.

Although other liquor delivery services exist in the area, Drizly’s verification software ensures that liquor is kept out of the hands of minors. Age verification made the service even more appealing to Alcanna when it was looking for a platform to sell its products on demand.

“Vancouver has been thirsting for everything that Drizly facilitates, not least online access to our vast inventory, an intuitive shopping experience and the convenience of delivery in under an hour. It’s a win-win in every sense of the term,” Fran Coons, Vice President of Operations at Alcanna said in a press release.

By equipping retailers with technology that can verify age and identification, Drizly helps business owners protect their liquor licenses. Their retail partners are provided with a device to scan barcodes on official forms of identification. Drizly’s proprietary ID verification technology enables delivery personnel to verify IDs with accuracy that goes well beyond a manual review. The scans collect the customer’s name, date of birth and the ID expiry date, and the device can determine whether the ID is authentic. Once age and identity are confirmed, the scanned information is deleted from Drizly’s records, so there is no concern about collection or storage of personal information. Retailers aren’t required to use the device and can choose to use the scanner for every delivery or only when employees suspect the customer is underage.

Regulations

Provincial regulations alcohol delivery services are required to follow under their licensing agreement do not allow delivery services to store liquor themselves. Instead, they must take orders from a verified adult, then purchase the order from a retailer or general merchandise liquor store licensees such as Liquor Barn or Liquor Depot, and deliver the liquor to the adult who ordered it at a place where it is lawful to store or consume. The delivery service license in Alberta is considered a Class D liquor license and costs $200 annually. In British Columbia, licensed establishments are permitted to sell their products online and deliver them to customers only between 9:00 am and 11:30 pm and orders must be delivered on the same day they were placed.

Additionally, in British Columbia, anyone involved in the selling or serving of alcoholic beverages is required to complete “Serving It Right” training.  Serving It Right is British Columbia’s mandatory self-study course that teaches licensees, managers, sales staff and servers about their legal responsibilities when serving alcohol, and provides practical techniques to prevent problems related to over-service. This training is extended to and required for alcohol delivery personnel as well.  All Drizly delivery drivers are Liquor Depot and Liquor Barn employees, so they go through the same training as in-store staff, knowing how to recognize whether someone should not be served and when a customer may be a minor.