During one of the worst years on the books for most of the hospitality industry, the spirits category did quite well, all things considered. In 2020, spirits sales rose 1.3 points to represent 39.1% of the total beverage alcohol market, gaining share from both wine and beer, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. (Each point represents $800 million, meaning that measly-sounding 1.3 points represented more than $1 billion in sales.) This marks the 11th straight year of spirits growth.
The success of spirits even in a year when bars were largely closed can be pegged primarily to legislation allowing cocktails to-go in 22 states, curbside pickup and delivery options expanded across the country and the loosening of direct-to-consumer shipments of spirits, says Cassandra Rosen, the co-founder and president of the alcohol marketing agency FK Interactive. But the long-term continued expansion of the spirits category can be attributed to the canny approach of producers who are particularly adept at tapping into the zeitgeist.
The competition between brands for shelf space and attention is fierce and getting fiercer. In 2005, there were just 57 craft distilleries in the U.S. In 2020, that number climbed to 2,265, according to the American Craft Spirits Association, representing an 11% increase year-over-year.
Studying successful brands shows how a mixture of common sense, market research and armchair psychology create a delicious result that spirits lovers may find irresistable. “We all consume and buy things,” says Rosen. “We just don’t enjoy being ‘sold’ to. Solid and successful branding explains what a product is, who it’s being created for and why someone should choose brand A over brand B or pay a premium price. If this message is effectively communicated at the shelf and then supported with the right brand strategy, consumers will understand the appeal of a product and will hopefully be willing to take a chance on something new and different.”
Of course all of this communication has to happen without saying a word. So what sets a particular brand aside from its cohorts has as much to do, it seems, with what appears on the outside of the bottle as with what resides within.
Telling the story of a brand through the label may become essential amid an escalating demand for limits on the ability of alcoholic brands to advertise. The impact, Brand Finance estimates, could be as much as $267 billion for the top nine brands alone. Strategic communication, both subtle and overt, through labels may become the best and only way for brands to reach some new customers. This is how some have made it happen.
1. Establish a Visual Identity
A brand’s identity has to be instantly clear, ideally from several feet away. “The 20-10-5 principle refers to how a bottle or package is visually seen from 20 feet away on the shelf, at 10 feet and so on,” says Rosen. “At 20 feet away, a bottle or label’s color and shape need to stand out, so that at a minimum you understand what it is.”
For one marketing guru turned distillery owner, this concept is deeply familiar and as instrumental to a brand’s success as the quality of the liquid inside. “My goal has always been to get people to pick up the bottle I’m selling,” he says. “Spirits consumers, unlike wine consumers, are much more likely to buy a bottle once it’s in their hands. It’s part of the culture of wine to pick up labels, read the back and return them to the shelf. But if you pick up a bottle of my vodka, chances are you’re buying it.”
This marketing expert spent 15 years at a renown supplier, where he worked on several major and minor redesigns, giving him insight into how to fix the images of both legendary brands and startups. “You can’t overhaul a brand with a huge presence in a market, because you’ll confuse your customers,” he says. “The opportunity for completely changing a label happens near the launch or when brands are still relatively small or regional.”
Based primarily on a label overhaul, he helped turn one tequila brand in the supplier's portfolio, into a juggernaut that sells 800,000 cases a year in the U.S. “There were several problems with the messaging, starting with the name, which isn’t easy for English speakers to pronounce,” he says. “So I put it in all caps and made it easy to read. Then I told the story of the Day of the Dead and Mexican Independence in very simple but contemporary ways through pictures on the label. Before that, it was selling 1,000 cases in the U.S.”
In 2017, he left the supplier to launch his own brands and used those principles to launch his own brand of vodka, which has doubled its growth every year.
Other brands don’t need a complete overhaul as much as they need a retooling to get the next level. It’s an important distinction, especially for regionally focused producers with loyal followings.
The head of brand development at a North Carolina distillery says that as a small craft distillery with a strong following, it was cautious about rebranding but knew that its bottles were “outmoded,” he says. “The bottles themselves didn’t reflect what we do.” The change was also a matter of backbar logistics. “Our old bottles were very clean, tall, wide and thin Philadelphia-style bottles. It was becoming a branding issue on bars and even in retail spaces where the wide bottles took up so much room they were turned to the side, so no one could tell what was inside.”
The distillery was launched in 2015. In January 2021, they introduced a tall, slim bottle for its aged premium line and a squatter bottle for the main line. “They can’t be turned on their sides, which is key,” he shared. “But we also became more transparent about our production process because consumers are much more sophisticated now and want to know what’s in the mash bill and how long the barrel-aging process is.” Since rolling out the new bottle line, the distillery's sales have increased 25%.
2. Appeal to a Specific Type of Customer
Everything from the font and the colors to the images and even the choice to use capital and lowercase letters sends subtle messages to the consumer. “If you’re selling a luxury product, typography and capitalization are of high importance, especially off-premise,” says Rosen. “Premium and superpremium brands frequently opt for all capital letters in their wordmark or logo. At five feet away, bottles should have a distinct purpose that directly connects with the ideal customer.
For some brands in tricky categories, creating a label that speaks to customers they want is especially fraught. “Hard seltzer has become a meme in and of itself,” says a multimedia artist and the co-founder of a hard seltzer brand. “There are so many puns around the culture of seltzer consumption. Our goal was to communicate how the product can be a classic craft beverage, a high-quality drink that can be savored.”
He worked with the company CEO and co-founder to create a look that reflected what was inside: an artful, ethically sourced product in sustainable packaging, created by and for creative eco-conscious consumers, he says. In addition to a classic Americana vibe, a hand-drawn horse and hand-lettered words, the cans prominently advertise the product’s (relative) diet-friendliness: gluten-free, one gram of sugar, two carbs, nothing artificial, made with agave nectar.
While launching during a global pandemic in October 2020 is no founder’s dream, the packaging has clearly struck a chord with buyers. “We were hoping to focus more on on-premise as a nigh premium seltzer product, so the timing was rough,” he says. “But as the world opens back up, we’re seeing amazing growth. In the past 90 days, we’ve grown 130% month-over-month, and we just cleared more than 1,000 accounts in California.”
The brand’s biggest sellers have been the “bougie high-end spa water” seltzer flavors, such as Cherry Rose and Ginger Pear. “We’re skewing way older, according to the retailers we’ve spoken with, and we’re psyched. We’re appealing to people who read the backs of labels, people in their 30s who may have been too embarrassed to try a mainstream seltzer.”
Other brands opt to shelve subtlety in favor of just simply going for it. Package design is often the only opportunity to quickly tell customers everything they need to know about the brand.
