GIFTING … WHY IT’S ESSENTIAL TO A DRINKS BRAND PLAN
Understand the shape of the year so that your marketing can be anchored in the right places.
Gifting should be integral to a drink’s brand plan. Understanding the shape of the year, with holidays and celebration events so that marketing can be anchored in the right places can make or break a drinks brand.
But marketing is only one part of the plan. Production, logistics, consumables, cashflow and budget all need planning. And the communication needs to begin way before in a clearly defined calendar plan.
Plan, and put on your Christmas hat
If you’re not talking about Christmas when the kids go back to school, or even before that in summer, you’re not going to capitalise on Christmas trade, which accounts for around 60% of sales for most drinks’ brands.
Once the kids go back to school, put on your Christmas hat, however odd it feels. You need to seed your brand with the customer as they start to see the boxes of quality street stacked in supermarkets, plan their festive shopping and think about getting the bottles in the cupboard for the big day.
Logistics and packaging
Due to Brexit and the pandemic, we’ve seen weeks and months added to logistics. You may be able to produce your drink, but there are other critical items necessary to that drink, such as packaging, dry goods, and labels, which might all be coming from elsewhere in the world.
If you are working to a brand plan and planning a spring launch for Mother’s Day or something similar, make sure your logistics can accommodate your plan. Is there any rework? Any physical rebuilding of packaging necessary. Will this be out of bond, or in bond? There may be duty to pay. All these things need to be factored in.
The ideal all-year-round appeal
Christmas is probably the biggest anchor point for a drink’s brand plan. But there are other occasions that your product will naturally lend itself to - Valentine’s Day, Easter, Father’s Day. The brands that can find a way to be relevant to a spread of these occasions, really hit the sweet spot. It’s about finding a way for your product to slot into other gifting occasions too.
And some drinks are typically winter or summer drinks. The art of the drink brander is to give a product all-year-round appeal. For example, Campari – how can this work in a dark drinks menu as well as a summer evening spritz menu? Take the classic Pimm’s/Baileys analogy – almost as summer Pimm’s drinking fades, Baileys winter drinking takes over – it’s about trying to find ways to combat that.
Pink gin for Father’s Day anyone?
Brands need to understand the occasions that will give them the biggest return on their marketing investment. That involves understanding some of the stereotypes and the nature of the product. You will be led by your product and what type of drink it’s known as and who it’s suited to. While you’re unlikely to sell much pink gin for Father’s Day, many women now drink whisky so it’s about brands thinking carefully and strategically about those nuances and where they fit into the events of the year.
It pays to personalise
It’s important, when thinking about gifting opportunities for a drinks’ brand to consider not only the person purchasing the gift, but the receiver. Value and cost are vital to the gifter obviously; and retailers look at price banding very carefully.
Gifts for casual acquaintances are not the same as gifts for nearest and dearest. This is where personalisation becomes really important – it’s a big way to add value.
These one-off gifts for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Valentine’s Day have seen the big brands finding ways to make their product more about the person receiving it – and doing this with personalisation. This could be with a label, neck tag or sleeve. There are complications and pitfalls to be aware of with this, but it is essentially the act of taking the standard product and catapulting it into something special. And if you can make an adjustment to your product in this way, you will smartly avoid sitting on piles of stock, which gives you useful flexibility.
The seasonal pattern for your brand
Christmas, as we’ve said, is a big push for just about every drink brand, but successful drinks’ brands will have a clear pattern of events and promotions throughout the year when they will talk about their brand.
Straight out of Christmas, sales go through the floor, so brands look to the end of January to talk about Burns night – which is a great reason to start talking about their brand. It’s about looking for those opportunities. If there’s an international negroni day – then why not use it to talk about your brand?
There’s really no one answer to what works. Every product lends itself in different ways to the calendar. If it’s whisky, Christmas, Burns Night and Father’s Day might be the main features on your calendar. If it’s gin it might be Christmas, Mother’s Day and summer barbecues.
Beware a calendar of promotions
It’s crucial not to consider every event as an opportunity to cut prices. They are opportunities to talk about your brand, engage consumers and increase relevance by engaging with what’s going on. The brand plan is not a plan to discount otherwise you will just end up selling too much at a low price.
Don’t forget the spring kick-off
By the time the end of March comes, the opportunities open up, especially this year with the Queen’s Jubilee. Christmas cupboards are empty and wallets are – we hope - recovered. The spring kick-off is as important as Christmas. But don’t wait until March to talk about it, you need to be talking about it in August of the prior year, so you know how to manage that post-Christmas dullness.