Beverage brands are scrambling to figure out how to keep their businesses moving forward in a time of shuttered restaurants and bars, shelter-in-place orders, and the economic uncertainties that are changing consumer buying patterns. We share our tips for adapting to this disruption while continuing to provide real value to trade and consumers.

How do you adapt to the disruption?

Refocus your on-premise approach
Marketing to the on-premise accounts has always been about providing value and filling the needs of bartenders, sommeliers and restaurateurs. This time of social distancing is no different, but you’ll need to adapt to the changing environment. Restaurants are closed and bartenders are out of work. How will you maintain those relationships? How can your brand fill the interim needs of these figures that are essential to our industry? Is there any room to reallocate some marketing funds in order to help the bar and restaurant employees that you depend on? Beverage directors are itching to get back to work. We’ve even heard word that some are putting together spring menus in this time off. This is the perfect time to connect one-on-one with a phone call or social media message to your on-premise customers and ask how you can help them in this time of need.

Offer an easy path to purchase
The market need for alcohol has certainly not changed, though the methods to obtain it certainly have. Now is the time to ramp up your direct-to-consumer channels. If you are a spirits brand, can you or your accounts sign on with channels like Drizly, Mercari, or Spirit Hub? If you’re a wine brand, how can you strengthen your mail-order option for consumers? More importantly, how will you communicate with your customers that these options are available? Your BevTest review comes with a customizable “Buy-it-Now” button that links your product’s review page to your ecommerce solution. Make it effortless for Tastings.com viewers to click to buy when they land on your review page.

Keep your customers engaged
Now is the time to engage longtime and new customers through new and existing channels. BevTest can help you connect with our 100,000 monthly visitors on Tastings.com and through our trade network of 18,000 active drinks industry members. A BevTest review is the ultimate tool for marketing on a budget. Engage consumers, get free promotional tools for point-of-sale and digital marketing, keep your brand top-of-mind in beverage directors that can’t wait to get back to work.

Re-concept your advertising strategy
On-premise sales have come to a halt, so how can you use that down time? Jordan Friedman of Bond Moroch, a brand marketing, PR and digital agency suggests creative ways of reaching your customers. Since people are mostly confined to their homes, smart brands are thinking about ways to get into people’s homes. Since most people who are watching TV are either watching the news, or are binge-watching Netflix and Hulu, traditional television advertising won’t be as effective as it once was.  And advertising on news sites and social media platforms can only go so far, since some may have restrictions when it comes to alcohol marketing. The good news is, there are ways to meaningfully engage with customers in the digital realm by curating unique and branded experiences. We have an upcoming webinar on specific techniques and tactics that can be utilized. Follow us on social media @beveragetestinginstitute for webinar times.

Get your brand in front of buyers and influencers, despite event cancellations
Every major trade show and tasting event has been cancelled, but Beverage Testing Institute’s year-round professional review service is still accepting entries and publishing results. By participating in our published reviews, you are getting access to a proven brand-amplification platform designed to communicate the quality, style and story of your brand to our 100,000 monthly Tastings.com visitors.

 

PRESS RELEASE 

For Immediate Release
March 17, 2020

BEVERAGE TESTING INSTITUTE, CLOUT AND BOND MOROCH ANNOUNCE ALLIANCE TO HELP BEVERAGE COMPANIES DRIVE WINNING BRANDS

Beverage Development Marketing Alliance (BDMA) Aims to Help Beverage Brands Pivot During This Significant Market Disruption.

Chicago, IL & New Orleans, LA – Beverage Testing Institute, the nation’s leading independent beverage rating and review company, Bond Moroch, an award-winning integrated marketing firm, and CLOUT, one of the nation’s premier public relations and corporate communications agencies, today announced they have cemented a working partnership. Through this partnership, formally known as the Beverage Development Marketing Alliance (BDMA), players in the highly-competitive wine, beer and spirits arenas gain a new mechanism for simultaneously creating both winning products and brands.

BDMA has nearly 50 years of collective experience in developing and refining liquids, brand strategies and campaigns for some of the world’s best beverage companies including Coca-Cola, Bacardi USA and Beam Suntory.

While our nation is facing an unprecedented disruption, consumers and brands are continuing to push forward, buy products and make products.  Many brands which had earmarked funds for event sponsorships in their marketing budgets now have that capital available for advertising, PR and digital.   The BDMA can help brands quickly pivot and engage with the consumers they planned to capture through sponsorships and event marketing.

Chicago-based Beverage Testing Institute is a multi-faceted organization that provides ratings, beverage buying guides, and education for consumers and the trade through its publication Tastings.com.  A certified member of the American Society of Testing and Materials, Beverage Testing Institute’s consulting division helps beverage industry competitors develop, refine and optimize their products and is considered to be the industry leader in liquid and brand analysis and development.

Headquartered in New Orleans, the undisputed alcoholic beverage capital of the planet, Bond Moroch works with alcoholic beverage brands to develop and market winning brands.  From start-ups and regional players, to household-name brands, Bond Moroch has helped beverage competitors create powerful brands that stand out in crowded marketplaces and capture the preference of discerning customers.

Based in Chicago, CLOUT helps leading as well as challenger beverage and spirits brands influence the markets they serve and protect their corporate reputations. In addition to garnering positive media coverage and brand publicity for their clients, the PR firm also specializes in developing beverage and spirits brand personas and product narratives that will resonate with target audiences. CLOUT also leads corporate communications strategies for brands that addresses investor and employee communications as well as establishes crisis prevention and management protocols.

CLOUT CEO Michon Ellis states, “Beverage players need to place as much of an emphasis on understanding their consumers and how best to communicate with them – now more than ever.  What to say, and more importantly how to say it, is imperative when developing an effective public relations or corporate communications strategy for any wine, beer or spirit brand. Their target audiences value exclusivity and are adventurous as well as curious.  Communicating in a way that inspires them to take action can be complex. The BDMA helps to remove that complexity by ensuring seamless communications excellence from concept, to launch, to in-market maintenance.”

According to Jerald O’Kennard, director of Beverage Testing Institute, “The BDMA is the go-to solution to provide marketing services, industry connections, and brand amplification now that all of Spring’s trade events have cancelled.  Our original vision with the BDMA partnership was to help our wine, beer and spirits clients dramatically accelerate their go-to-market process by linking the brand and product development processes, and make them simultaneous.  Our aim is to go all the way upstream conceptually with our clients, and ensure that their products and brands are forged in the same furnace.”

Bond Moroch partner Skipper Bond continues, “Much in the same way that people ask what comes first, the chicken or the egg, many wonder what comes first, the product or the brand.  Our partnership with Beverage Testing Institute and CLOUT is born from our vision to go in a completely different direction.  We believe the product and brand development processes need to be interwoven at the very outset, at the concept stage. In uncertain times, brands need to robustly engage with their consumers, because when times get better, those bonds are remembered.  We don’t simply market brands.  We help to create brand loyalty.

About Beverage Testing Institute
BevTest is the research, advisory and engagement company that helps alcohol brands be better. Their value to the trade is built on their unique position as an advocate for the alcohol beverage industry, an independent publication, and a decades-long, consumer-trusted brand. On this foundation, they develop, refine, recognize, and launch the world’s best beverages. For 39 years, their clients and partners have accelerated their development processes, improved the quality of their products, and amplified their brands reputation and worth through quality-centric messages and marketing strategies that they have developed with them. Visit bevtest.com for case studies and solutions.

About Bond Moroch
Based in New Orleans, Bond Moroch works with household-name brands to achieve success in competitive, complex marketplaces.  Using a mixture of art (creativity, imagination) and science (research, robust data mining and customer discovery), they help their clients create and optimize brands that touch and enrich the lives of their customers every day.  www.bondmoroch.com

About CLOUT
Founded in 2019, CLOUT is a public relations and corporate communications agency providing strategic communications counsel and turn-key public relations tools as well as tactics that empower companies and brands to grow their bottom line, influence the markets they serve and protect their corporate reputations. www.showclout.com

 

Media Contacts:

Jerald O’ Kennard
Beverage Testing Institute
P: (773) 930.4080
E: Jerald@bevtest.com

Jordan Friedman
Bond Moroch
P: (504) 323-8130
E: jfriedman@bondmoroch.com

Michon Ellis
CLOUT
P: (312) 883-5381
E: michon@showclout.com

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