{"id":21261,"date":"2017-04-10T08:00:50","date_gmt":"2017-04-10T07:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fifteen-staging.fifteen.dev\/blog\/digital-marketing-in-the-drinks-industry\/"},"modified":"2025-01-24T15:36:29","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T15:36:29","slug":"digital-marketing-in-the-drinks-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fifteendesign.co.uk\/blog\/digital-marketing-in-the-drinks-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Marketing in the Drinks Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a good time to be a drinker.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been a surge<\/em> in interest in different alcoholic beverages over the past few years. People want to explore different types of drink. There\u2019s been a boom in craft beer, gin and whisky. What\u2019s more, it\u2019s changed the cultural make-up of the country with micropubs popping up in disused laundrettes or sheds, replacing traditional pubs that closed down because of all kinds of reasons: the growth of chains, people opting to drink more at home, or the financial crash.<\/p>\n

So how are drinks promoted in 2017? What are some of the digital marketing<\/a> tricks being used? Let\u2019s whizz through a few things that have caught my eye over the past few years \u2013\u00a0because there are certain traits that are transferable to other industries too.<\/p>\n

Content tactics: documenting the process versus lifestyle branding<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Broadly speaking, money is spent on either telling stories or talking about ingredients, but the same old rules apply. The brands that succeed know their audience, create good content to connect to that audience \u2013\u00a0which may or may not occupy different marketing channels \u2013 and deliver that content consistently. Money is spent on content though \u2013 be that money in budgets or time in creating organic content in-house. The important thing is to put stuff out there.<\/p>\n

The content itself? Well, that depends on the drink.<\/p>\n

Some drinks are phenomenal, superbly crafted liquids using amazing inputs; it makes sense for those companies to talk about the provenance of those inputs because that\u2019s the selling point in an of itself. Think of the wine trade, organic growers<\/a> or biodynamic<\/a> vineyards who are happy to show the world what goes into their products and how they\u2019re made. Transparent. Open. The inputs are<\/em> the selling point itself and tap into a certain type of consumer\u2019s mindset. This works even in the craft beer movement<\/a>, which loves to talk about what goes into those products and what crazy ingredients they use to get the flavours they want. Though it comes across as anti-marketing, it\u2019s just good old-fashioned documenting, a marketing tactic that can work in any industry. But the product needs to be strong to start with.<\/p>\n

Brands that don\u2019t want to share what goes into their products \u2013 because sometimes the ingredients are inferior, but they\u2019ve also got shareholders to please \u2013\u00a0are more concerned about telling interesting stories on a grand scale. In this sense, drinks occupy a similar space to perfume, or fashion, as people identify with branding. (And we\u2019ve done gin branding in the past<\/a>!) Drinks become lifestyle products, tapping into the mindset of a different consumer: one who does not know, or does not care, about the details of what they\u2019re drinking, but want something that tastes good and identifies with the lifestyle presented to them.<\/p>\n

Storytelling & Celebrities<\/strong><\/h2>\n