US Drinks Conference Debut Partnership with WSWA Wows SRO Crowd

We’re just back from a whirlwind few days at the WSWA in Orlando where we inaugurated the link up of USDC with WSWA. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America is the big daddy of wine and spirit trade conventions in the U.S.

After four years of flying solo with the U.S. Drinks Conference, we were thrilled to be asked to provide the educational sessions for this year’s WSWA, with plans to co-locate the two conferences in full next year in Las Vegas.

We weren’t sure what to expect in terms of attendance and were kind of worried since we didn’t have that much advance time to promote it. But we were blown away by the response. The crowd started pouring in for the first session on Social Media, and it became pretty clear pretty quickly we were a bit conservative….Cindy Nachman-Senders and the folks from WSWA did some fancy footwork and found a fast extra 50 seats. We ended up with a standing room only crowd and had to turn people away at the door. The next three sessions were also packed filling up the extra seats.

We led off with a focus on Social Media Marketing with me as moderator and a panel of (in pic l. to r.) Kit Codik of Liquor.com, Vincenza Kelly from the Italian Trade Commission, Alyssa Rapp of Bottlenotes,Steve Raye of Brand Action Team and Camper English of Alcademics. They did a great job of putting into context what this whole SMM beast is all about.

The key takeaway was the importance of engagement, transparency, authenticity and commitment…not just talking the talk, but walking the walk.

Jeff Grindrod moderated the Brand Builders session with Chris Catterton of Bogle Vineyards, Norm Bonchick of Van Gogh Vodka and Dave Stringfellow of Beacon Beverage Imports. The big advice there was for small brands…start small, stay focused and don’t expand too quickly. Distributors have their eyes on what’s going on and they’ll recognize a successful brand. It’ll be much easier to expand when you’ve proved the concept, and then can leverage the middle tier for growth.For larger companies there's no silver bullet. Just as each brand has a unique USP, each has to determine the right strategy whether it be flavor extensions galore, or sticking to a core set of skus.

MHW Ltd. prexy John Beaudette piloted the “Navigating Brand Entry: Understanding the Three-Tier System” session with panelists Bill Earle of NABI, Charlie Merinoff of Charmer Sunbelt Group, Vince O’Brien of Nixon Peabody and Jim Squeo of NABCA. They pointed out the critical need for offshore suppliers to have an experienced pilot to guide them through the apparently Byzantine rules and regulations that comprise the American drinks market.

Mike Ginley of Next Level Marketing played solo cleanup with a deep dive on maximizing the value of a Brand Ambassador team. Brand Ambassadors (aka Market Managers) are a critical component to a new brand launch. They can help prime the pump and supply the account-level time and attention that can results in real brand traction.

Hartford Courant Features Brand Action Team

The Hartford Courant ran a nice piece on our work with Absinthe Mata Hari
Avon-Based Company Helping To Distribute Absinthe, Once Banned In U.S.
By KENNETH J. ST. ONGE | Special to the Courant
November 13, 2008
Absinthe is an herbal-based liquor from France that until last year had been outlawed in the United States. (PATRICK RAYCRAFT / HARTFORD COURANT / October 9, 2008)


Vincent van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso all drank absinthe, a supposedly hallucinogenic liquor popularized in Europe in the late 1800s. But until last year, absinthe had been banned for nearly a century in the United States.

Now, two former executives of Heublein Inc. — once headquartered in Hartford and now part of Diageo, the world's largest liquor, beer and wine firm — are working with an Austrian-based beverage maker to help import and distribute a new domestic variety of the licorice-flavored, translucent green beverage in the hope that it will gain favor among American mixed-drink lovers.

To do so, Steven Raye and Jeff Grindrod, managing partners of Avon-based Brand Action Team, have tapped an informal network of several dozen former Heublein colleagues, all of whom have a different expertise and their own contacts in certain areas of the country.

So far, that recipe has been a major boost to Brand Action Team clients looking to sell their products through the often confusing, state-regulated distribution system.
"We're a small company — there are basically four of us — but through this virtual network of former Heublein [colleagues] we're a much bigger company, and we're able to do the same things as the bigger guys," Grindrod said.

Brand Action Team was born out of that attitude of collaboration. Grindrod and Raye left Heublein in the late '90s and worked on various beverage-industry products until they teamed up formally in 2005 to do marketing and other services for overseas beverage companies looking to gain a foothold in the U.S.

Over the last few years, their clients have include Ukrainian vodka companies and importers of cachaça, a rum-like Brazilian liquor made from sugar cane, and pisco, a brandy-like Peruvian liquor made from grapes.

The absinthe Grindrod and Raye are working with is called Mata Hari, a bohemian style liquor that differs from the French-style absinthes that are the only others available domestically.

Absinthe is in its own category as a drink, the two said, having a special aura of mystery and infamy. Absinthe is distilled from the herb Artemisia absinthium, or wormwood, that contains trace amounts of an oily compound called thujone, which is believed to possess mildly hallucinogenic qualities, although that has never been established. Regardless, absinthe enthusiasts claim that the drink induces "clarity," and rumors about its mind-altering effects have enhanced its scandalous reputation.

One story holds that Van Gogh was imbibing absinthe when he lopped off part of his ear. That type of publicity is difficult to buy.

That might be one reason Brand Action Team was able to get Mata Hari to market in 32 states over a 60-day period. That's unheard of, Raye said. Normally that would take 18 months or longer.

"It speaks to the demand for this drink," Raye said.

Still, it will take more than a buzz factor to support the long-term sales of absinthe. To get it established, Grindrod and Raye say the drink must possess a quality all widely drunk American liquors share: mixability.

"We live in a cocktail culture, and Mata Hari is far more mixable that the French-style absinthes," Grindrod said.

Part of the strategy is to develop new drink recipes that call for the $57-a-bottle Mata Hari, and Grindrod and Raye have been working with bartenders in Connecticut to come up with new ideas. They include the Hemingway (with champagne), the Bohemian Mojito (with equal parts absinthe and rum) and the Courtesan (a shot containing absinthe, whisky and lime juice).

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”.