Brand development is a job that is never completely done: with new players emerging from all over the world, brand recognition is constantly challenged. Here are two examples of product launch on which I collaborated.
🌐Context
Singapore is a regional hub to penetrate the South East Asian market. In the F&B, the island has been making a name for itself over the past couple of years, as a cocktail hub, reinforcing its attractivity for new brands entering the region.
Destination Beverage has been working in this extremely competitive fast-paced market since 2013, as a beverage importer and supplier. Specialising in foreign brands, the start-up is also the agent for 11 brands, meaning that they have exclusive distribution and a mission of brand development on the Singapore market. As a marketing manager, the agencies were my scope of work.
Product 1: Tito's Handmade Vodka
Tito's Handmade Vodka is the current top-selling spirit in the US. Originally from Austin, it is reputed for its taste (corn-based vodka), its distinctive bottle and its gluten-free certification.
Its positioning is quite unique: presented as a crafted vodka, it is moving from the "partying" image that other brands like Absolut or Belevedere are pushing for. Instead, it leverages its "American-made, American-owned" image.
Another singular aspect is the heavy charity involvement. Indeed, there is an entire wing called Love Tito's dedicated to community work. When working with the company, I almost never worked with the marketing department, but rather the Love Tito's section. One of their mission statement states that they are a "philanthropic company that does events and just sells vodka on the side”.
🔍Background
The vodka brand has been selling in Singapore for a while, due to the American demand. Indeed, when doing market research, it was clear that for the bars who were supplied, they ordered only a couple bottles per month, only because of the requests from American customers. Despite this, there was never any marketing activity or work on brand development for Singapore.
In 2019, there was a strong will from the corporation to have presence in the APAC region. Hence the assignment of two brand representatives in the region, with one based in Singapore. Destination Beverage was appointed as the brand's agent in June 2019.
When it comes to the local market, vodka is not necessarily the crowd's favorite: in terms of volume, gin and whisky are the most popular spirits. Therefore, outlets tend to bring more expensive brands of these products, and balance their costs by purchasing lower tier ones for less popular items like tequila or vodka. Yet, the position of Tito's is quite premium when it comes to the price.
🧭 Problem Definition
Given the brand identity, positions and guidelines, the challenge was to raise the awareness of the value of Tito's both in the industry, and in the mass market.
📝Contingencies
Establishing the number of events as a KPI. After discussing with the headquarter, the instruction given was that building the positioning was advised to do through numerous events. Eventually, by having frequent Tito's events islandwide, we would make some noise and catch the attention of the public and generate demand.
Introducing the charity component to a spirit's branding. The guidelines from the brand were clear: marketing efforts would be under the format of free bottles, only if if there was a form of donation involved in each marketing initiative. For instance, for any Tito's event, the outlet would have to give part of the proceeds, or organise a donation pattern to receive free bottles. Mixing charity and alcohol consumption is complicated to bring in a sales conversation with the outlets, to the patrons, and even with some organisations which are sometimes not comfortable being assiocated with a spirit brand.
🗺️ Solution
Standardise the range of possibilities in a sales enablement kit. The easiest way to introduce the range of activities doable with Tito's was to create a brief presenting different formats of event and promotion. In a simple document was explained:
Monthly promotion: listing a "charity cocktail" in their menu, and 50% of its proceeds must go to a charity of their choice. Viable only if the vodka is the official outlet's housepour (spirit brand used for every drink of its category).
One-time or monthly event: 50% of the proceeds on the Tito's drinks or the ticket goes to charity
The general idea was to bring activation to the outlet, making sure that the patrons - regular or new - have something to look forward to. Plus, even if they give a portion of their proceeds on the Tito's drinks, the free bottles sponsored lower their cost per drink, which allow them to maintain a certain profit. Finally, the CSR from the outlet is improved and by partnering with Tito's, the brand awareness to the patrons grows as well.
Once these formats were secured and approved, the brief was blasted to our customers, and followed up with sales visits.
The most interesting format was to have regular occurings - either monthly promotions or events. That way we would consistent depletions, a steady relation with the outlet and increase the brand awareness to the patrons.
Partner up with a charity. If some of the outlets had their own preferences when it came to giving to an organisation, there are a number of them who had no idea who to collaborate with and could not take the time to prospect on this. Therefore, I investigated for local charities, explaining our undertaking, and suggested names in the brief. It reassured the outlets to know that we would be the linkage with the charity, and from the point of view of the charity itself, it was a way to raise more donations and spread their word to a larger audience.
Leverage a listing in a popular spot. Another initiative which we worked on was being listed in the most visited outlet of the island, CE LA VI. At the top of the Marina Bay Sands, it is famous for its rooftop bar and its club, making it a tourist must-go location. When discussing with the outlet, they were under contracts with other brands. So to be listed, Tito's had to demonstrate an additional value. There was also an interesting trend to work on: indeed, the peak hours of the bar were between 7pm and 11pm during the week. In order to improve their performance, they were looking for a way to increase their traffic from 6pm and until midnight.
After long negotiations with the brand and the venue, we managed to impose Tito's as the first brand to launch the notion of "rituals" at the top of Marina Bay Sands. Growing trend especially in hotel bars, it describes the offer of a complimentary drink the patrons at a certain hour. With CE LA VI, we collaborated on making it a true entertainment peak, with dancers serving Tito's mini-drinks, 3 times between 6 and 7pm, 3 times before 11pm and 12am, daily for 3 months. Trailblazer in the industry and with massive exposure, this was a perfect boost for the brand implementation in Singapore.
✅ Assessment
In total, we have done almost 40 promotional occurings in less than 8 months, listed the brand in about 50 outlets, while raising money for 20 different charities.
The spotlight put on Tito's at CE LA VI led an internal training on the brand to all the outlets from Marina Bay Sands, facilitating the listing of the brand in multiple venues of the hotel complex.
One of the step that was discussed to pursue the development was putting efforts on retail. There was already an increase in the volume ordered by our resellers - online and physical stores. The following move was the listing on Amazon Singapore, and our own e-shop.
Here are examples of the initiatives on which I have worked on:
References:
Ramirez, E., 2019, Singapore Vies To Be The Next Cocktail Capital: Here's Where To Drink Now, Forbes.com [June, 27th] [LINK]
Carruthers, N., 2020, Tito’s overtakes Smirnoff as top-selling spirit in US, Thespiritsbusiness.com [January, 14th] [LINK]
Statista, 2020, Consumer Market Outlook: Spirits in Singapore, Statista.com [July] [LINK]
Product 2: Foamee
Foamee is a food additive which provides foam when shaken with a drink. With a few drops, it is a game changer for users, traditionally using egg white or chick pea juice to obtain foam.
Indeed, some classic cocktails such as whisky sour or espresso martinis are expected to come with foam but the common issues are:
Conservation of the pasteurised eggs
Time consumption to break the eggs and get the egg white
Egg white are not adapted to the increasing vegan demand
Chick pea juice is still rare and often because the bar has a proper restaurant which uses chick peas and therefore does not constitute an additional cost
With Foamee, a single of bottle of 100mL provides 625+ consistent servings, is a cost saviour and significantly eases the operations. Thanks to its plant base, it is certified halal, vegan, peanut-free and gluten-free.
🔍 Background
The product was developed by a Eastern European bartender based in Indonesia. When he started using it in his own venue, he realised the sales potential and quickly searched for distributors in target countries. Destination Beverage was appointed as an agent in Singapore in September 2019.
🧭 Problem Definition
The challenge in Foamee's case was catching the attention of the industry, and creating demand for a type of product never seen before.
📝 Contingencies
Working from scratch with no basis or predecessor. Because of its unicity, there are no players, best practices or actual market to study. It means that we have to create our own content and set of references.
Limited human resources. Destination Beverage has 1 head of sales and 1 head of marketing, and 3 people as support (admin, finance and warehouse). On top of sales visits, the tactics had to aim at reaching a large amount of people at the same time.
🗺️ Solution
Identifying the relevant media of communication. A lot of the interactions in the local F&B community is with word of mouth - which is uncontrollable content wise and prevents from having a concrete timeline. However, a single platform helps spreading the word, and thanks to the recommendation of some peers, the Singapore Bartenders Forum was pinpointed as the ideal place to share any content.
Enrolling the most visible outlets first. The product in itself was solid enough to pitch it to any outlet, but the strategy was to aim for reputed venues, to accelerate the awareness about the product and build a solid reputation. One of our customers was CE LA VI, for which it was a real asset - being a volume bar.
Convincing the key people. With Singapore's growing cocktail reputation, a lot of the bartenders travel in the region, increasing their personal branding by doing events or hosting guestshifts. Quickly, the founder of Foamee understood the importance of this and provided us a large amount of 50mL samples. Up to us to manage them well and identify the relevant bartenders, who would indirectly be our ambassadors by using it themselves.
Demonstrating usage. This was the key for all the content created. Because the product is unknown and not comparable to anything else, there was a focus on education and demonstration. When CE LA VI listed Foamee, the head bartender filmed a training for his teams to demonstrate the usage. By doing this video, he indirectly promoted the brand: it was a real asset to show quickly how could the product be used, but also increasing the reliability of the product based on this reckoned individual.
We also started an Instagram campaign where we featured the testimony of a panel of users. We selected very different outlets - volume bars, restaurant, craft cocktail bar, hotels, ... - so as to demonstrate the flexibility of using Foamee.
✅ Assessment
As of today, Foamee is listed in about 60 outlets in Singapore. On top of that, bartenders have reached out to Destination Beverage to purchase for themselves, seeing the value of the product and keeping it for their personal R&D.
A real asset during this product launch was the online presence of the founder. As a matter of fact, he understood the influence he could leverage thanks to a solid community management. Moreover, he lives in the region, so he was able to adopt a go-to-market strategy based on his own experience.