Brand Strategy

The ongoing blurring of beverage market categories creates new opportunities, but it can also represent hurdles at every step of your go-to-market plan. How will you stand out in a tsunami of new product offerings? How will you gain the attention and interest of sometimes-fickle consumers, retailers, or wholesalers? There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. But it’s clear that successful strategies are developed and put in place long before your first case arrives in the distributor’s warehouse.

It starts with articulating the new product’s reason for being. We work with you to clarify the role it plays in your company’s mission and vision. But of course, meeting your company’s needs isn’t what will make it successful; we help you identify a consumer need, whether tangible or intangible, that the brand can successfully target. After articulating your “Why,” your strategy will provide answers for the other key questions around the drinker and the occasion:  Who, What, Where, and When. In order to find that relevant whitespace in which your brand can thrive, we develop a thorough understanding of the competitive landscape, interpreting all relevant competitors’ brand communication and positioning.

But none of this matters if your brand can’t get into the hands (and mouths!) of drinkers. The pathway to that outcome will be illuminated by your SWOT analysis. We’ll determine how best to leverage your Strengths, overcome your Weaknesses, exploit your Opportunities and stand tall against Threats. How can you double-down on your particular “Points of Difference” and ensure that you “Points of Parity” are not a weakness in any way?

This in turn will help prioritize alternatives at every step of the way. Who is your target consumer? What other brands do they buy? Where do they shop for beer? What social media or other marketing touchpoints are relevant to them? What should your marketing budget be and how should it be allocated across media, promotions and other consumer touch-points? We’ve developed pragmatic answers to each of these questions for dozens of brands in the last few years alone, ranging in scope from global to “just down the block.”