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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