U.S Drinks Conference 2008

The U.S. Drinks Conference BAT helped organized was held last week in London, and was an unqualified success. Here's the news release we're sending out

This was the second year that we’ve put on the event in London and this year we had a larger number of delegates from 14 countries (that's if you count Scotland as a country. And we had some notable sponsors come on board this year including Beverage Media, Drinks Business and Just-Drinks.

The roster of speakers this year included some of the top executives in the American Drinks market including Rudy Ruiz, EVP of Southern Wine and Spirits, Vincent O’Brien, Senior Counsel at Nixon Peabody, John McDonnell, COO of Patrón Spirits, Bill Earle, President of the National Association of Beverage Importers, Roy Danis of AV Brands, and conference co-organizer John Beaudette, President of MHW Ltd. The subject matter included case histories and lessons learned by brands that have been successful in the U.S. and a wealth of data on the American market structure. Our Jeff Grindrod and Mike Ginley, President of Next Level presented results of “hot off the presses” research on consumer trends and preferences.

Several themes recurred through the conference including the impact of the global financial crisis on the Drinks industry, aligning distributor and supplier expectations, and the shift in marketing strategies toward more online and non-traditional spending.

Impact of Financial Crisis

“The economic crisis we’re going through is certainly having an impact on the business, but the research results clearly demonstrated that the U.S. beverage alcohol industry is recession-resilient,” commented Ginley of Next Level.
Grindrod added that “we see continued growth in volume and revenue, albeit slowing, and a shift in consumption from on premise to off premise. This is very timely data since much of the survey was completed in the two weeks preceding the conference. Perhaps the most interesting thing we found is that for those folks going out to restaurants, the last thing they tend to cut out is the cocktail, wine or beer part of the meal,” he noted.

Aligning Expectations

Ruiz of Southern Wine and Spirits gave some well received advice to suppliers looking to export their brands to the U.S. “The key to a successful relationship between supplier and distributor is in aligning expectations,” he stressed. “When presenting new brands to Southern, expect to come in with a three year plan including a detailed one year operating plan with realistic expectations on case volume. It is more worthwhile to consider launching in smaller markets, proving your success with programming that demonstrates it’s repeatable.” According to Ruiz, the best demonstration of brand traction is when they see bars and retailers calling Southern and asking for the brand.


Evolution of Internet as Strategic Tool

Steve Raye of Brand Action Team brought home the importance of new online tools such as blogs and social media marketing for brand building. “It’s a noble goal to get visitors to your brand website, but at the end of the day, it’s more important to get your content out to where prospective customers already are spending their time…reading blogs, searching for recipes, reading comments on wines that other consumers have posted. Indeed, research shows that 65% of consumers read reviews online before purchasing a product.”

The US Continues As The Worlds Best Beverage Alcohol Market For New Brands

As John Beaudette summarized at day’s end, imports continue to drive growth across all beverage alcohol categories. “Considering the emergence of Eastern Europe, the Far East, and the rest of the world, we recognize that suppliers have many options in terms of investing behind new or existing brands. We hope we’ve clearly demonstrated that America is still the primary destination you should target”.