Bart Sayer shares an article that taps into technology-driven delivery options for consumers using the craze for craft brewing and mixology as an example.
With the craze for craft brewing and mixology, and thanks in part to pop culture phenomenon Mad Men, there’s almost nothing cooler these days than a friend who can whip up a perfect batch of Manhattans at a dinner party. Pick a publication or website of any major spirits brand — Pernod Ricard’s Entreprendre or Diageo’s thebar.com, for example — and you get a wealth of craft cocktail-related content. Watch a two-minute how-to video — in our case, for a rye old fashioned — and you’re ready to go, right? Well, not really. The recipe calls for two or three dashes of Angostura bitters (not on the bar cart), some maraschino cherries (whoops, out of those) and, of course, rye whiskey (the last of which you used learning how to make the perfect Sazerac). What you could really use is an app that will deliver this entire experience quickly and personally, maybe even including a bartender who can stick around to make a few drinks. But alas, this solution doesn’t quite exist. Yet.
Over the past few years, an explosion in technology-driven delivery optionsfor consumer goods and services has been disrupting traditional distribution methods. Everyone is trying to get in the game: Google (Google Express), Amazon (Prime Now), Uber (UberEATS), and niche players such as TaskRabbit and GrubHub. And now this new on-demand reality is poised to affect one of the most arcane and complex distribution ecosystems in the business: beverage alcohol, also known as spirits, wine, and beer.
More than any other consumer goods area, the beverage alcohol world is ripe for disruption. The major brands in this space have long been on the leading edge of marketing innovation, showcasing a maniacal focus on delivering innovative consumer experiences — think of super-premium gin Hendrick’s, and its Emporium of the Unusual events held in such odd venues as the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn. Yet even the largest beverage alcohol distributors remain mired in block-and-tackle activities, namely, making high-volume drops in tightly defined territories with limited promotional support. Curating unique in-home experiences to selected subsegments of consumers at odd hours of the day and with all of the needed accoutrements — from the bitters to the mixers — is at odds with their business model, to put it mildly.
Despite the difficulties, however, there are tremendous opportunities for these companies:
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Millennial access: Personalized home delivery is another way to reach the always-on, digitally native millennials, who are 80 million strong, representing a quarter of the U.S. population alone, with US$200 billion in annual buying power. And they are demonstrating in category after category that they want their brands of choice on demand, digitally enabled, and tailored to their specific requirements. Millennials place great value on personalized experience curation in other categories (think StitchFix in apparel) and expect the same from their favorite beverage alcohol brands.
Key points include:
- Millennial access
- Mobile interaction
- Specialized product innovation
Read the full article, Mix and Deliver: The Next Step for Drinks Apps, on LinkedIn.