Maker’s Mark® – the Bourbon in the Red (Trade) Dress – Still Defending the Wax.

Trade dress – a product or product package’s non-functional physical details and design identifies the product's source and sets it apart from others’ products.

I love trade dress. For many companies and their products, it’s a crucial component of their successful marketing and key to maintaining a competitive position. Think McDonald’s Golden Arches. Think “The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hands” – the candy’s trademark double-M shape began in 1941. Think Yellow Freight, whose ubiquitous trucks are painted Swamp Holy Orange.* In previous Signalwriter posts about trade dress, such as here, I haven’t much changed my position over the years.

One seven-year-long trade dress war ended in 2010, so everyone thought. Maker’s Mark won an order in 2010 awarding it exclusive rights to the dripping wax seal. Maker’s Mark gained an injunction prohibiting any other company from using a similar seal and look. US District Judge John G Heyburn II said that the bourbon maker held a valid trademark. End of story? Nope.

This past Thursday, the US 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday stepped into the long-running argument over whether Maker’s Mark owner, Beam Inc, can keep the trademark on the wax seal and enforce that injunction stopping any other liquor company from using a similar top.

It’s clear that a lot of people – even many marketers – don’t completely understand the value of trade dress. When Dennis Yang reported in April, 2010, that Judge Heyburn ruled the dripping red wax seal can only be used by Maker’s Mark bourbon, I was fascinated by some of the comments appended to his post.

ElijahBlue: “How many great ideas are abandoned, bursts of inspiration are extinguished because of these abusive (and stupid) copyright, patent and trademark lawsuits?”

Jedidiah: “This sort of BS makes me want to go to my favorite purveyor of strong drink and buy some of this Maker’s Mark crap (never bought it before actually) just so I can have the pleasure of smashing the bottle in protest.”

ABC gum: “Maybe others think wax is a big deal ... I cannot envision why.”

Another forum commenter, Stephen, tells why. Identifying himself as a Maker’s Mark Ambassador, he properly noted:

It’s the basis for their brand’s recognition, like Tiffany blue. A representation of the wax in that particular shade of red adorns all the things they put out, whether it be note cards or golf balls, so that when you see the red wax you think MM. While it’s hardly a novel idea to seal a bottle with wax, the tequila company is clearly trying to glom onto Maker’s Mark’s high-end symbol for their own game, a symbol the bourbon has developed over 50 years.

When clients say they want to be the Mercedes-Benz of their particular industry or – right now – look like Apple, it’s touchy to remind them that many of these highly identifiable companies have spent many years and millions of dollars establishing their trade dress. (Maker’s Mark spends about $22 million annually to market its bourbon whereas would-be infringer Cuervo has spent only about $500,000 of its overall branding budget on the Reserva tequila it was going to “wax.”)

Tamara Miller, an intellectual property lawyer at Leydig, Voit and Mayer, encapsulated the massive value of trade dress in a single paragraph:

When my little boy sees a red box with a girl on it, he knows the “Sun-Maid” raisins he likes are inside. My husband knows that any black, dome-topped grill is a “Weber,” and that the goldfish-shaped crackers in our pantry come from Pepperidge Farm. In order to find my “Cheerios” at the store, I look for the yellow box with the big red heart on it. Without a doubt, my family relies on trade dress to recognize our favorite products, and so do countless consumers every day.

Red wax seal equals Maker’s Mark. This is the business of marketing. Cuervo and brand owner Diageo should spend their time and money on their own creative trade dress. Not stealing someone else’s.

*Yellow has changed its brand to YRC – I understand what economics drove this transformation but regret the passing of a super trade dress. Bottom photo credit: © Shannon Graham.

Wichita Ale Tales: The Brewer Polishes Old Snortin' Norton.

In Wichita, Kansas, Dan Norton is the Head Brewer at River City Brewing Company. We've been stopping here every time Barbara and I drive to Minnesota...for years. This time, though, Maria (our server) offered something different: Old Snortin' Norton, a beer created by the brewer to celebrate his 1,000^th beer. It is...fine. Said the same in an email to Norton; asked for details. And you know, sometimes you just can't beat other people's stories. Here's at least three – from the brewer's mouth.

Thank you for the nice comments on my 1,000^th batch. A lot of times for commemorative brews, I’ll brew something very big, add some crazy ingredients, age it in some kind of barrel with tons of dry hops, push the limits a little.

I have been researching my family history quite a bit this year, and I thought for my 1,000^th batch that I’d keep it simple with a straightforward style, but a style that is “all there” when it comes to flavor. My grandpa Bob taught me how to homebrew when I was 18 and stumbled upon his batch of Pale Ale that he brewed in the basement fridge.

Grandpa Bob was a strong-willed, some say stubborn guy that loved his family and grandkids very much! He was an engineer for the Grand Trunk Railroad in Battle Creek, Michigan, and was known at every bar that was on his route home from work, as Old Snortin’ Norton, or sometimes “Snort” for short. He was also on the USS Reid in Pearl Harbor, and when you look at records online of who was on that ship, it lists the crew with a column for nicknames. Sure enough, it says Snortin’ Norton next to my grandpa!

I never got to sit at a brewery with Old Snortin’ since he passed when I was 20, so I wanted to honor him with this beer, and every glass I drink of it, I raise it up for my grandpa!

Since we all hail from England, I decided on an English Old Ale. My version is on the dark end of the spectrum for this style, but within range. The 7.7% alcohol Is also towards the top range, but that’s what I wanted. I used Maris Otter as my base malt for this beer, which adds a little more grainy-biscuit flavor and a little more body than our standard 2-row Pale Malt.  Some Caramel 80, a mid-range Caramel malt adds a little toasted toffee-like flavor, Chocolate Malt and Black Malt add to the complexity by adding their dark color and sweet roast flavor.

But hold it to the light and the deep amber color of the Caramel malt will shine a nice garnet color. East Kent Goldings, and Fuggle Hops add their spicy English Hop character, then I fermented with a English yeast strain, which adds that signature flavor. All in all, I think it turned out really good. It will age nicely, so I am stowing two kegs away for a rainy day, possibly for our 18^th Anniversary Party (which is a can’t-miss event!)

If you and your wife were to only have one day a year to stop into the brewery the first Saturday in March would be it!  We pull out all the stops and release some really nice beers that day.  Plus, they are all $2.50, you can't beat that!

Cheers to you and your exploration of good beer, Richard.

Companies, brands, products (such as RCBC's handmade beers) – they're all burnished by good stories. Big-time thanks, Dan Norton, for sharing these. The photo of the brew pub (top) is from the Wichita Library, thanks very much. In the smaller photo, the glass on the right contained the Old Snortin' Norton. Barbara's Emerald City Stout – same brewer – is on the left.

Sharp-Edged Beverage Marketing, The Red Bulletin Is a Product Worthy of Its Product.

The new “modern lifestyle magazine focusing on sport, people, art and culture” arrived in the Sunday edition of The Houston Chronicle and I’m real thankful. Otherwise, I would have missed Red Bull’s launch of the US edition of The Red Bulletin.

It’s the second month the sports-and-party drink has put more than a free million copies of the excellent publication in major metro newspapers like The Chron; the intro also included the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald and the New York Daily News.

I wish I could report that I’m squarely in its demographic – I’m not. But The Red Bulletin comes with a terrific range of people-oriented articles that are cleanly written: the edge doesn’t come from a fakey-hip style but from excellent copy. Add vivid photos and a powerful European design concept…this is an arresting property.

As mentioned in the AdAge launch announcement: Red Bull already publishes the magazine in countries including Great Britain, Germany, Poland, Austria, South Africa, New Zealand and Kuwait, with distribution totaling 3.4 million before the U. edition. Red Bull plans to add further editions later this year and in 2012.

I stopped an Outside subscription years ago as the quality of its writing (which was exceptionally high) fell off and the publication turned to full-time product flackery. My sub to Wired will be allowed to lapse because it has become an all-out product-sales hype machine with muddy direction and too many easy, smarmy articles.

The distinction I am pointing to is honesty. The Red Bulletin has been frank as well as smart in publicly owning its mission: support of global marketing efforts for the world’s best-selling energy drink (2010 saw a 15.8% increase in sales, worth US$1.5 billion).

Find and review a copy for yourself. The Red Bulletin is not going to drive me to buy the drink but my already deep interest in its marketing programs has taken another big jump. And the thinking part of Red Bull’s demographic will love it.

Can Radio Still Power Product Sales? When You’re Rush Limbaugh, Absolutely.

There’s some cognitive dissonance seeing Rush Limbaugh dressed up as Paul Revere – even in a cartoon. Yet that’s him on the back of that horse on the front page of his new Two If By Tea website.

If you like, you can forget what I said about radio in the previous post about Pandora:

…isn’t radio, no matter how enjoyable or cleverly wrought, ancient history, biz-wise?

Conservative talk radio, of which Limbaugh is the exemplar, is a broad exception to this thought. Love him or hate him, El Rushbo is one of broadcast radio’s driving forces. Introducing his own line of ready-to-drink (RTD) iced teas is therefore not just a retail play, it’s news. Two If By Tea:

…represents traditional American values of capitalism and the pursuit of excellence. Each bottle is designed to rise above the sameness and mediocrity that threatens our great nation. Just grab a 12-pack and join the fight to preserve the America we know and love. It’s worth it!

The product launch hit the trades big…and polarized yet another market segment. For example, Jeffrey Klineman, editor of Beverage Spectrum, put an announcement up first thing on the BevNet newsletter. Unfortunately, Klineman editorialized about Limbaugh’s “invective;” a number of industry readers came down on his post like a ton of teabags.

That’s the way the past week has gone – lots of hype and a lot more heat about the talk radio host’s political stances. But what about Limbaugh’s business model? Canned or bottled RTD tea’s a hot-and-cold category with a huge variety of packagers, flavors and sizes. Skimming stats from Mintel and Beverage World, new RTD tea product launches in the US doubled in 2009 alone; volume increased nearly 5% in that same one-year period. There are so many options for retailers, in fact, that the marketplace is overstocked; much product is value-priced, which means low margins.

And so what? Limbaugh has got, beside the right to be his own entrepreneur, his own broadcast vehicles. He’s has spent hours (I’m not kidding!) talking about and promoting these buy-online teas. Whether or not he’s paying rate card for the time – and he says he is – his unrelenting, day-after-day brand promotion has got to be moving cartons of iced tea.

Even if ratings research is right about Limbaugh’s audience slip, he still has an large number of loyal listeners (are they still called Dittoheads?) on 600 radio stations nationwide. Not to mention that live camera online.

Few advertisers can afford three hours of radio promotion every day – never mind Saturday and Sunday. Limbaugh is also executing a rather good marketing plan in support of his product launch, with the right stuff on the website, plenty of flanking action not to mention free shipping.

Watch the talking head e-market. He’ll keep generating controversy, maintain Dittohead loyalty and convert many of them to buyers of Two If By Team products. That’s power radio.

In Fredericksburg, It’s Not about the Beer – It’s about Marketing and Selling the Beer.

I was in Fredericksburg, TX, this weekend – Barbara and I went for a wedding. It’s been years, maybe decades since I was last in this Hill Country town. It was crowded, a typical summer tourist weekend in F’burg…as with so many towns with their summer festivals.

Thanks to the Internet and the boom in craft-brewed beers, I knew enough to want to stop at the Fredericksburg Brewing Company (est. 1994); have a fresh beer or two. Did that first thing.

Barbara had a pint of the Pioneer Porter – smoked style, good. I coddled a glass of the brewpub’s Maibock which was very tasty. To my mind, it was the weekend’s best beer. The curious part: the same people who own Fredericksburg Brewing Company created the wonderful Hangar Hotel where we stayed overnight, 3.5 miles off Main Street at the airport. Lovely place, great room.

I was saddened to learn the hotel bar does NOT serve the beers from its sister company, the brewpub on Main. Strange oversight; maybe it’s regulatory. Kelly Ayers, Marketing & Events Manager for the associated companies*, confirmed it in a responsive email today:

We would love nothing more than to serve Brewery beers in the hotel bar; unfortunately laws for brewpubs are different than they are for microbreweries.

As a brewpub, we are only able to sell our beer on site; we cannot distribute to other retailers (even our sister businesses). We’ve been crossing our fingers that this law would be changed and have been watching closely Texas HB 660, which would allow brewpubs to distribute their beer.

You can follow updates on the bill on the Texas Legislature website. Right now it looks like it has been left pending in committee. If we can get a bill like this passed rest assured that we will not only have Fredericksburg Brewing Company beer in the Officers’ Club at the Hangar, but also in grocery stores!

By the way, I entirely agree with your review of the Maibock, it is one of my favorite brews!

Now one serious lapse is mine: Why didn’t I leap into the car and speed the 3.5 miles back to Main Street to buy a growler of the Maibock? And get back to the hotel lickety-split with that brew all fresh and cold? Well, I didn’t. My bad.

Passage of Texas House Bill 660, which Ayers mentions, is the consumers’ best hope for allowing craft-focused brewers to more effectively market and cross-sell their beers.

We can all help. It doesn’t even have to include drinking the beer – though that sounds strange. First, get your social media caps on. Go to Texas Beer Freedom on Facebook and sign up. Friend your local microbrewery or brewpub while you’re at it.

If your favorite bar or pub doesn’t carry fresh Texas microbrew, try a few encouraging words to the manager or the bartender. Because this post isn’t just for Fredericksburg and its tourists…it’s for all of us.

Think of this as our summertime “Freedom to Market” mission.

*To complete the set, let me mention that Ayers is also responsible for marketing the third of the sister companies, Fredericksburg Herb Farm. Photo courtesy of TripAdvisor.

Out of Australia: How the Beer There Becomes (Briefly) the Beer Here.

The opening line of Wikipedia’s Beer in Australia entry makes joyful reading: “Beer arrived in Australia at the beginning of Western colonisation.” Kind of reassuring, too. In fact, the first paragraph neatly outlines the relationship of Ozites and their beers, like Australia’s ranked fourth worldwide in per capita beer consumption – though far lower in terms of alcoholic consumption. Like Aussies like lager best.

When Yanks think of Australian beer, it’s likely to be Foster’s because it’s a brand much advertised here, on and off. But the lager is made for this market by SAB Miller, Foster’s US licensee. And even though there are, in Australia, a huge number of different beers, they have all tended to be lagers as well…celebrated in song and story and even Mambo Loud shirts like the Reg Mombasa item above.

New Oz-beers and brands do make it across the Pacific, even though they’re more likely to be available in closer-to-Australia markets such as Portland, Seattle and San Francisco. Harder to come by in Houston although one brewery in Melbourne, Barons, caught my attention for name-related reasons. I’d mentioned it a time or two on Facebook…but no distribution here. I have wondered what its signature beer, Barons Black Wattle Original Ale (an “herbed, spiced beer”), tastes like since Rachel Baron and Alison Bond brought us some wattle seed from their last visit to Australia.

Everything is so connected – as you will see in just a moment.

Comes a ringing at the front door, which I posted to Facebook:

An AMAZING package from Susan Tapper, from Australia: four beers! By mail. Shipped end of February. Susan wrote: “So glad you actually got them — Who? What? Beers from Australia?? You would love it here — beer is the beverage of choice of Aussies young and old! The national ‘water’. (I actually travelled to Melbourne where I found those...)” What a gift - thank you, Susan. I swear to drink them only for good. Watch for reviews...

It’s a miracle, this gift from this long-ago Quest colleague who went off to Australia, married and raised a wonderful family while keeping in touch from time to time. Email, and then Facebook, made it even easier…especially in the shipping-of-the-beers department. Susan’s card also noted:

I so enjoy your beer reviews! I hope this (shipment – ed.) encourages you to look at some Aussie brews! A country filled with beer drinkers!

The miracle: four glass bottles of beer came regular post, all the way from Australia, without losing a precious ounce of beer through breakage. Susan used bubble-wrap (wonder what that’s called in Oz?) and foam rubber – even our postal person was amazed that the beers arrived intact.

What did Susan send thisaway? Not one but two bottles of Barons, one the Black Wattle Ale; the other the brewery’s Lemon Myrtle Witbier, 5.8% and 4.5% respectively. There’s a single bottle of Pale Ale – 4.7% ABV – from Kooinda Boutique Brewery (Kooinda means “happy place”) also in Melbourne. And one bottle of 6% Temptress Chocolate Porter from Holgate Brewhouse (think “brewpub”), out of a beautifully maintained 19^th Century commercial hotel in Woodend, Victoria.

In the past year, we have heard from a lot of people who would like us to visit Australia. Susan Tapper’s tempting us with actual beers is the best offer we’ve had so far. Note the use of the word “briefly” in the headline: the Oz-beers won't last very long here in Spring Branch.  

NOTE: Thank you so much, Susan. Thanks as well to Australia Post and the US Post Office for getting these beers to Houston.

Less Tiki, More Southwest: Matching the Drink to that Mad Gringo Shirt.

Have I led you astray in the previous post, where I mentioned “a tiki-themed alco-beverage?” Didn’t mean to. What I ended up drinking was El Amanecer de Xalixco, better known as the Tequila Sunrise*.

“Tropical” is really more Southwestern since the figure in the pattern of the new shirt is Kokopelli. Fertility god of the Anasazi. Three thousand years old. Looks good on that shirt, don’t it?

There’s nothing of Polynesia here, though. I also didn’t have any pineapple juice. What I did have was orange juice. Grenadine. Fresh lemons. And Xalixco Reposado Tequila from Guadalajara. So this is a post about liquor brands and marketing. Yay!

Along with the monster tequila marketers there are dozens if not hundreds of craft-made tequilas that are sold at different price points: plenty of entries in a marketplace that’s changed in several significant ways since the last time Signalwriter blogged about tequila, in 2005.

The reviewer nchoward made some interesting observations about the tequila market just a few years ago:

…88 percent of all tequila…is consumed in one of two ways: Shots or margaritas. By the age of 25 the average man has cut his shots consumption by 20 percent. The target consumers…are men 25 to 34 years old evolving to sophisticated drink choices. Now these consumers are drinking whiskeys, rums, and vodkas, usually mixed with cola. For leading brands, about 60 percent of consumption is with cola. Compare that to tequila where 60 percent of consumption is in margaritas.

Or in Tequila Sunrises made by considerably older guys in, say, suburban Houston. There’s more – from a recently published global tequila market review:

Tequila has been displaying high volume growth across a broad spectrum of international markets over the last few years. Indeed, some 13 out of the top 15 global Tequila markets posted gains over the 2003-2008 period. The US and Mexico remain the key markets by far. The most successful part of the US Tequila market in value-growth terms remains the super-premium sector – albeit at a reduced rate of growth.

That Xalixco Reposado from the Signalwriter liquor cabinet is an apparently middle-of-the-pack tequila with a history. Unearthing some background, you can read that Jesus Hernandez founded the original distillery at “the beginning of the XIX century.” Three Hernandez generations owned the distillery named La Invencible until 1962 when it was sold to the Orendain family.

In ’71, Roberto Orendain sold it to Bacardi which subsequently added new technology, expanding the operation (now called Tequileña thanks to another merger) to a daily production of 10,000 liters of tequila; and intro’d the Xalixco brand in the domestic Mexican market.

Forgive the pun, but by 1987 the worm had turned for Bacardi so it sold part of the plant to Mexico’s Vergel Brandy which lost still more market share so in 1990 Vergel sold out to Enrique Fonseca, Sr.

Are you keeping up? Fonseca is noted to be one of the largest agave farmers in the state of Jalisco. He’s credited with reinvigorating the Xalixco formula (with blue agave) and brand, and building exports to the US.

This Xalixco is warm and smoky – none of that burning, numbing sensation you get with cheap tequila – with an aroma of a pinewood fire and a taste of delicate creosote and sugar. It’s a sipping liquor, too good to mix with orange juice. But it’s sitting on the shelf at $18-20 bucks a bottle and will probably never be noticed because it’s not a “super-premium.”

Fonseca doesn’t need another super-premium; the company has a number of aficionado brands like Asombroso that it keeps introducing.

Too bad that consumers have no brand story to grab onto but I think Xalixco is a more of a distribution play: a shelf-filler. Tequila’s a huge big market. The brand has its role to play. Enough, then, about marketing - let this liquor’s value be our little secret.

*Low-grade the tequila and keep it simple. Here’s a recipe from Esquire.

Walgreens is Back in Beer – Big Flats 1901 Priced to Move.

America’s largest liquor retailer? Used to be Walgreens. Its alcoholic beverage sections accounted for close to 10% of the chain’s sales and the inventory included beer. Then, in the mid-1990s, booze was phased out, mainly for inventory reasons: too many SKUs for the retailers’ managers and employees to handle.

Starting about a year ago, though, Walgreens’ second thoughts began to resolve themselves. And this past June Fox News (among others) reported:

The nation's largest retail drugstore by store count has reintroduced a limited beer and wine selection in about 3,100 of its roughly 7,500 stores. The drugstore has plans to stock the alcohol in about 5,000 stores by the end of 2010.

Wine began to show up on the Walgreens shelves in this part of the country. Maybe the move was also driven by increased competition from CVS, which offered wines from that chain’s appearance in Houston.

Now there’s…beer. Here! And there and everywhere.

The displays went up here right after New Year’s and what’s being sold is a private label brew called Big Flats 1901. It appears to be a national rollout; blogger Jake Parillo, for example, spotted it in downtown Elmhurst, IL.

From Houston, let me offer a closer look. The beer’s trip to market is modestly complex but that’s not so unusual today. Winery Exchange out of California created the brand for Walgreens. The packager describes itself as the “leading corporate brand beer supplier for premium quality beers from the USA, Latin America, and Holland.” It is, in fact, a creator for retailers; some of its beers have been award-winners.

Next comes Winery Exchange’s partner in creation: Genesee Brewing Company in New York, a long-lived brewer with 400+ employees. Not only does Genesee brew its own brands, including its famous Cream Ale; it contract-brews like crazy. Maryland’s Hook and Ladder Brewing company and Dundee Brewing in New York have their beer recipes executed by Genesee.

I’ve already purchased the “premium American lager” and posted a RateBeer.com review. The price point/taste combo can’t be beat. But it is merely okay beer, not great beer. The brand story is weak: “big flats” supposedly describe river flatboats which don’t appear on the label.

At this time, it’s all price. The wines and (now) beers don’t appear on the Walgreens website but they are in this week’s sale flyer, and that includes the Big Flats 1901.

I can’t see “America’s drugstore” making a big push for its new brew. Maybe the drugstore chain will report on how it goes. I hope so. Marketers learn their world one brand at a time – at least I often do. Following the progress of Walgreens, Winery Exchange and Genesee could be instructive and tasty, too.

NOTE: Thank you to Walgreens Store 5536 in Houston.

Speaking of Beer, Product Sampling Is a Time-Tested Way to Market.

Today’s post is driven by several elements, not least of which is an article in this morning’s Houston Chronicle business section. You’ll see it offers important facts on which I have based this…argument.

Then there’s the well-recognized technique of product sampling, a long-honored method of capturing the attention of would-be consumers.

Finally, there’s the note from an anonymous Facebook correspondent (alright, it was Donna Collum) which said, “Dang, u drink a lotta beer, dude!”

Starting from back to front: Frequency, yes. Recency, yes. Quantity, no. I have undertaken the consumption of beers out of a pure desire for marketing efficiency. I’m completely focused on sampling beers I haven’t tried before, on the theory that I am [a] determining which brands and styles of beer are…worthy…of future drinking; and [b] supporting the growth of an industry which is important locally, regionally and nationally.

Lofty goals! I don’t drink a lot of beer – I try a beer a day or every couple of days, usually one I haven’t tried before. I go back and “repeat sample” a beer whose various complexities are not firmly fixed in my mind. Sometimes, this takes two or three tries but you get the point. It’s all about discrimination and moderation.

Then, because mine is a scientific evaluation using this particular marketing tool, I carefully record each sampling on RateBeer.com, one of several on-line beer-rating groups which allow true “crowd-sourcing” of beery experience. I am a minor sipper compared to other RateBeer colleagues. Virginian BeerandBlues2 has 3,700+ beer ratings, for example; the doughty product-tester has been hard at work since 2003.

When possible, product-sampling can play a big role in branding and marketing. Here’s sampling researcher Cindy Johnson:

Product sampling can often work on its own to convert a targeted group of consumers. If the trial experience is strong and consumers are convinced to purchase the brand, no further spending is necessary to win with that target…There’s no advantage to layering marketing tactics and spending more against the same target, if trial alone convinces them to buy your brand.

Micro-breweries and regional craft brewers put product sampling to use because they don’t have the tools (read: buckets o’money) that the national and international brewers do. It’s an underlying factor in “Swimming in Beer” by Chronicle writer/blogger Ronnie Crocker. He reiterates the point that craft-brewed beer business is booming, while the “major producers are hurting and sales of imports are down…”

Generating attention and “drinkership” via product sampling is the best way undercapitalized local brewers can gain sales and market share. Brock Wagner is taking St Arnold Brewing Company to a production capacity to 50,000 barrels a year through missionary marketing and pour promotions, not classic media advertising (which Wagner has historically disdained).

I started out to have some fun with this topic and have ended up more aware of a couple of key marketing points. One, I hope, is reinforcement of the idea that there are very many marketing tools and we – as marketers – ought to be familiar with most of them.

Thanks to friends and colleagues for highlighting and supporting my beer-testing. I doubt I’ll ever get to 3,700 beers. But I expect to enjoy those that I do try and do some brand-marketing good along the way.

PS: Will blog for beer!

Is Old Crow Really the Bourbon Sam Houston Didn’t Drink?

The Old Crow people, or perhaps I should say their advertising agency, have been trying to convince the public, through the medium of the popular magazines, that the father of this city preferred their whisky to other brands.

Until that recent campaign, it probably had never occurred to most of us to raise the question of what brand of liquor Sam Houston drank. But now this seems to have become a hotly debated subject in our town.

So, seeking competent testimony on the matter, I called on Sam Houston’s grandson, Franklin Williams, in the office of his insurance firm in the Gibraltar Building, corner of Capitol Avenue and San Jacinto Street…Mr Williams is eighty-one, and his hair is white. Let his hair grow longer, take off his glasses, give him a Houston hat and a gold-headed walking stick, and he could almost sit for a portrait of the Liberator of Texas.

“What about this Old Crow propaganda?” I asked the son of Sam Houston’s second daughter. Mr Williams chuckled, opened a desk drawer, and took out a Manila folder. From this he took a page torn from a magazine. Under a reproduction of a life portrait of Sam Houston were printed these words:

Sam Houston, Texas’s beloved hero, knew the glories of Old Crow. He and Daniel Webster discussed problems of national import during a historic reunion over a drink of James Crow’s whiskey.

“Well,” I told Mr Williams, “I see where the Old Crow people claim Dan Webster, Henry Clay, and Mark Twain drank their product too…Do you think Sam Houston did?”

The grandson of the hero of San Jacinto smiled. “Well, there’s no telling what he drank in the public room of the Willard Hotel, when he was in Washington. But in Texas I think Sam Houston drank Bottled in the Barn.”

“You mean ― ?” I said.

“I mean,” he said, “that in General Houston’s time most of the whisky around here was homemade, and it was mighty good whisky. Sam Houston was not the kind of man to drink whisky imported from Kentucky when he could get good Texas-made whisky. Now, was he?”

“From my reading,” I said, “I’d say you’re absolutely correct.”

“What Henry Clay and those other fellows drank, I couldn’t say,” Sam Houston’s grandson concluded.

I excerpted these 11 paragraphs from Sig Byrd’s Houston by Sigman Byrd, Viking Press, New York, 1955. In those days, Old Crow was produced by National Distillers. “The manufacturer actively pursued such publicity: in ’55, they took out an ad in College English, the journal of the National Council of Teachers of English, offering $250 for every literary reference to their product.” [Wikipedia]. Byrd’s writing implies a chronic need for money. It wouldn’t surprise me if he wrote the original column to take advantage of this offer – early “blogging for bucks.”

In a brand reboot of sorts, current owner Beam Global Spirits and Wine/Fortune Brands launched Old Crow Reserve in April, 2010. It’s a nice piece of work by Santa Rosa, CA, agency Armstrong Associates.

Naked Women, Fandango Dancers, Bullfighters and Beer Signs…

Thanks to serendipidy and an old book, today’s post is for Will Rust, ECD at Ogilvy in Budapest:

     The Laredo is a pleasant, restful place, known to only a few Anglos. The walls are painted a kind of smoky aquamarine and are hung with many fine commercial lithographs, of such subjects as horses, bullfighters, naked women, fandango dancers, vaqueros swinging their reatas at stampeding cattle, and scouts in charro dress following Indian sign across the llano.

The most spectacular print is a large calendar from the Tecate Cervezaria of Cuidad Mexico that hangs over the back bar. It represents, in brilliant color, an Indian youth bravely mounting the stairway of an Aztec pyramid to become a human sacrifice, while a beautiful maiden crouches at his feet, imploring him to save himself – presumably for her.

So after he hung the calendar, Don Antonio decided to remove it. It was too pagan, too dolorous. But several patrons protested and so he left it. Now three signs tacked to the wall overlap the edges of the print, and so it has become a permanent part of the Laredo’s décor. The signs are in Spanish and, translated literally, say: WE DO NOT SERVE MINORS OF AGE; A PEARL, AS A FAVOR (which refers to another brand of beer); and BARBECUE, TRIPE, AND TRIPE SOUP.

Sig Byrd’s Houston by Sigman Byrd, Viking Press, New York, 1955.

Pour Your Way to Event Marketing Success? It Works for Me.

I presume that my enjoyment of Saturday’s 250-beer list at the Brewmasters knees-up in Galveston is evident from the photo above. Now I want to look at the entire event from a marketing perspective.

First of all, what is “it?” Saith one of the early event press releases:

This Labor Day weekend Sep. 3-5, Moody Gardens will host the first annual Brewmasters International Beer Festival – an event that promises to become one of the best and largest beer festivals in the nation.

Second, marketing-wise, who benefits? In this case there’re a lot of “whos.” Clifton and Constance McDerby of Food and Vinetime Productions are the producers – they credit their own enjoyment of food and wine with leading them to do these kinds of events. They conduct them all over the area, often for fund-raising. In this instance, there’s a stated desire to build something for the future, this “world class beer festival in Texas.”

Fair enough. Having attended just part of the festival (the BrewHaHa Grand Tasting), I can now identify anywhere from half-a-dozen to thousands of beneficiaries – a substantial marketing target. Spec’s is a big sponsor; the large-scale liquor/wine/beer chain gets even more “beer props” for its active role in these events. Then there are dozens of breweries large and small, from the international monsters (Budweiser, Heineken, and so on) down through the regional, state and local beer-makers – think Saint Arnold’s and Southern Star.

For smaller brewers, distinctive branding is one element of aggressive marketing – hustling being the other. Some brewers have now-quite-recognizable personalities. One of my favorite pitches comes from California’s Lagunitas Brewing Company:

Hop Stoopid is an American Imperial (or Double) IPA. ‘Give it to Mikey... He’ll drink anything..!’ Up the bomber went in toast, then to his lips, and what happened next could not have been foreseen. Hop Stoopid, a slick re-animator green fluid oozed from the bottle. When it crossed his teeth and came in contact with the bitterness flavor receptors on his tongue, his eyes rolled back in his head, he did a sort of death rattle, a cloud crossed the Sun, and all his hair fell out…Cheers!

Galveston benefits big-time during the final stage of its Hurricane Ike recovery, bless ‘em. The Festival has brought people to the island who might not have come otherwise, like the three young men from Atlanta who looked for a weekend getaway, spotted the Festival online, and flew over to Texas for the long schedule of events. (Enjoy, you guys!)

Finally but never lastly is the people. Beer is intensely democratic. Everyone says so and who am I to differ? Remember, we’re talking about 250-300 different beers here; there were pours for every taste. That means some bottle or can was being served during BrewHaHa that pleased every one of the attendees.

We the people are the ultimate marketing targets. On my way back from the event, I stopped at a Spec’s store and purchased “bombers” (large 22-ounce bottles) of Great Divide Espresso Yeti (a stout) and Lagunitas Hop Stoopid Ale, so it’s obvious the Festival worked its marketing magic on me.

Ronnie Crocker, who writes the Beer, TX, blog, said:

It was a very, very well executed event and I would imagine a revelation to a lot of folks about what beer can be like.

I believe there are three kinds of beer in the world. One kind, the least numerous, are the beers I’ve sampled. Two, the beers I’ve yet to try. And three, the beers I’d like to try and market. Given all the stakeholders it reached, the first-ever Brewmasters International Beer Festival is a great example of event marketing. I’m taking notes.

PS: Boulevard Brewing Company is in Kansas City, MO.

Southern Comfort: Oh Lord, Won't You Buy Me a Brand Revamp.

This coming October that semi-famous imbiber of Southern Comfort, Janis Joplin, will be dead 40 years. I suppose Brown-Forman, the brand's owners, felt that a brand redo was overdue.

The distillers tapped a great Minneapolis design shop, Cue, to execute the rebranding campaign; it's an evocative and colorful job. Leaving aside the sheer fun of working on a liquor brand as filled with consumer history as Southern Comfort (Joplin aside), the design house filled out the new brand vision from labeling to activation elements – all intent on capturing the “vibe of New Orleans.”

The brand's even more Créole now...styling, illustrations, the lot. At the same time, the brand website states that for every bottle of Southern Comfort sold, the company will donate a quarter to the Gulf Relief Foundation through the end of October 2010. It's trite to talk about “giving back to the community,” but two bits here, two bits there...it mounts up.

No matter what, though, this is a way-back brand. (“Take another little piece of my heart,” Janis!)

Brown-Forman suggests that “Southern Comfort, or SoCo, as it is known to a new generation of consumers, has become a fun choice when good friends create legendary nights together.” IMO, blogger Christopher Null said it way better on Drinkhacker:

Let's be frank. Southern Comfort has a difficult reputation. Everyone I know has a story involving the peach-flavored liqueur, and it usually ends with the blackout or someone's head being shaved against their will.

I wonder how many Cue designers' heads...got shaved?

Previous Brown-Forman blog posts appear here and here.