The rules of marketing in the beverage alcohol space continue to evolve as new consumers enter the market and category preferences change. In this series of videos, our experts for Park Street University explore the latest trends in marketing, including how to connect with Gen Z consumers, promoting brands in emerging categories, and the importance of trade marketing.
In his presentation at Bar Convent Brooklyn, Marc Farrell, Founder & CEO of Ten to One Rum, explains how his brand has worked to shift the perception of rum. Farrell discusses how Ten to One has leaned into the versatility of the spirit and the rich culture of the Caribbean to promote its product.
In this presentation from Bar Convent Brooklyn, Zee Kastanek, International Sales Director at EcoSpirits, explains why sustainable product innovations see higher growth in the modern beverage alcohol market. Kastanek reveals why many hospitality venues and operators are dedicating performance indicators to measure environmental impact how they are earning extra recognition through these practices.
In this Bar Convent Brooklyn presentation, Lindsey Johnson, the Founder and Creative Director of Lush Life, discusses some tips for trade marketing and how spirits brands can work with bars to achieve their goals. Johnson emphasizes the significance of brands connecting with bartenders and fostering an inclusive community.
In this presentation from Bar Convent Brooklyn, Jake Hodas, the Co-Owner of Lullaby, discusses how the beverage alcohol industry can connect with legal drinking-age consumers from Gen Z. Hodas emphasizes how promoting an experience can capture the attention of the next generation of imbibers. He also dives into Lullaby’s unique approach to social media marketing, focusing on the guest experience and authenticity to connect with Gen Z, and highlights the importance of preserving the human touch in the hospitality industry.
Crafting a New Perception of Rum with Ten to One
Marc Farrell (0:11)
I am the founder and CEO of Ten to One Rum. I was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago. After living in the U.S. for a long time, I wanted to find a way to bring the magic and inspiration of the rum culture I grew up with in the Caribbean to the U.S. and onto a global stage. That inspired the birth of Ten to One Rum.
Marc Farrell (0:50)
For us, “reimagining rum” and challenging expectations has been at the heart of everything we’ve done from day one—from the quality of the liquid to packaging, creative suite, community, and storytelling. Instead of a single-origin rum, one of our major points of difference is creating pan-Caribbean blends. By bringing together different distillation methods, provenance, and terroirs from around the region, we create nuanced, unique, and exceptional expressions in our core Aged and White rums.
Marc Farrell (2:23)
Before determining where to tell your story, you must crystallize your core point of view across three pillars:
- Product: We believe in quality over everything, built on craft (expert barrel aging and proofing), versatility across cocktail applications, and clean liquid (no added sugars, colorings, or flavorings).
- Brand Purpose: We aim to move the category away from caricatured “pirates and plantations” tropes, replacing them with a contemporary, authentic, and elevated representation of Caribbean culture.
- Core Customer: We maintain strict discipline around defining our target consumer—whom we internally named “Alex”—understanding where they spend time and what they enjoy drinking.
Marc Farrell (6:12)
Breaking through the noise in 2023 without a massive corporate budget requires a focused route to market:
- Product as Marketing: Bring continuous “new news” to market using a rotating third slot alongside core SKUs, such as ultra-limited reserve releases, sherry cask finishes, and custom product partnerships.
- Liquid to Lips: Tasting is our most effective marketing. We prioritize spending dollars “close to the cases” at local events rather than on expensive mass-media billboards.
- Trade Advocacy: Focus on building deep rapport, trial, and visibility within key accounts, continuously gathering outside feedback to refine the approach.
- Digital & Social Amplification: Organic social content should go beyond bottle shots to share pieces that amplify the brand’s broader mission, while email marketing serves as an essential channel to keep consumers engaged over the long purchase lifecycle of spirits.
Marc Farrell (14:12)
Once a consumer tries and loves your product, the key challenge is converting affinity into advocacy. Spirits brands are hard to scale individually, so your early adopters must become your biggest evangelists. By inviting core fans to events and encouraging them to bring friends, you cultivate a self-sustaining community that champions the brand on your behalf.
Marc Farrell (15:41)
In 2023, consumers care about more than just the liquid in the bottle. Brand purpose, cultural contribution, and community building are what make a brand special. Amid daily execution, never lose sight of your core purpose and point of view.
The Case for Sustainable Product Innovation
Zee Kastanek (0:09)
This is me—it’s a very old picture. My actual name is Zdenek, but ignore that, it’s too hard to pronounce, so Z is fine. I’m going to send you to start with this weird green box. Feel free to take a picture and wander around it, and I’ll explain at the end why the heck this exists. But as this is about marketing rules and talking in general about how we can approach marketing with new rules, developments, and ideas, this is a good example which I can talk a little bit about in general: how we got to that idea.
Zee Kastanek (0:58)
We all know that there is a problem with the climate. It’s not about saving the planet—it’s about actually saving ourselves through this process. I learned myself that I am a “Xennial” (born in 1985 between Gen X and Gen Z), but what connects us is the idea of being prone to consume stories that are actually trying to do something rather than constantly listening to people giving excuses why something cannot happen. Using the example of this green box will give you an idea of what we were trying to achieve by trying something new, although if I got a dollar for every time I heard that the green box would not work, I would be sitting somewhere in Cuba drinking piña coladas. Everyone was telling us that this cannot work.
Zee Kastanek (2:37)
From a commercial perspective, ESG and sustainability are no longer just a “nice to have.” Look at any of the partners who worked with us for this green box: they all have actual ESG metrics built into their bonus structures and KPIs. Five years ago, it was done just for marketing purposes, but that is no longer the case. Half of these partners have to deliver on real, tangible ESG outcomes every year. From the perspective of marketing your brand or services, it is a very powerful card to bring into board meetings because you know they actually need to deliver on something.
Zee Kastanek (3:53)
A big problem in our industry is right in front of us: all of these glass bottles are our number-one marketing tool. We want to keep that marketing tool, but at the same time, we need to look at what it does to our world. There are 70 billion glass bottles thrown away every single year. I spent the last 10 years in Singapore and Hong Kong, bringing different brands as a distributor to that part of the world. Knowing that a bottle traveled 7,000 miles on average to our barcode, 28 Hong Kong Street in Singapore, only to go straight into a bin on a Friday night after making 14 cocktails was confusing. That single bottle was packaged three times before it even came to me. So 70 billion glass bottles was a problem we saw and started working to solve.
Zee Kastanek (5:30)
If you go to any single partner within our distribution system—from the supplier to the importer, wholesaler, and distributor—and tell them distribution needs to change to be more sustainable, they’ll tell you it’s a headache and against their commercial outcomes. So we started looking into how we can collaborate and paint a story where everyone comes together and does a little piece of the work. If we all put together little pieces, we can make a change. Six years ago, it was in development, and it actually works now. We need the brand partner, the distribution partner, and the venue to each do their little piece.
Zee Kastanek (6:57)
The carbon emissions of all of this are very problematic. If Diageo, Bacardi, or Pernod Ricard completely eliminated all carbon emissions from their production, that is only 8% to 10% of the carbon footprint throughout the whole network of distribution. Ninety percent comes from after the product is finished and delivered to the bar—that journey creates 90% of all carbon emissions. That was the second problem we saw and tried to tackle, which is why collaboration between each party had to happen.
Zee Kastanek (7:54)
If we buy anything in a glass bottle, only 30% for small craft brands—and around 10% to 12% for major brands—is the cost of the actual liquid. Everything else in terms of cost is packaging, handling, warehousing, etc. So if you look at it from that perspective, there is a lot to be saved, replenished, and reused for team development, better liquid, or developing local communities. As Bill Gates would say, everything green has to have a green premium. I call BS—it does not need to be that way. You can create green, sustainable options that are commercially viable, but you need to connect all the pieces together.
Zee Kastanek (8:52)
For yourself as a brand, if you invent an activation that has a green element to it, it is something you can market anywhere—from screens in hotel lifts to menus next to every cocktail, or by winning green awards. It produces a much bigger outcome than most other activities we’ve seen in the last 10 years. Green actually brings you a fair bit of an audience: 42% of all consumer decisions in 2022 were made with some sort of green mindset, which was an 18% uptick from 2021. If you’re looking at new marketing options, your payback will most likely come if you do some sort of ESG or green partnership.
Zee Kastanek (10:07)
There are so many green awards now, so you’re doing yourself a huge favor by going after them. The green box you are holding in your hand was an idea seven years ago that came out of a distribution network called Proof & Company; it’s called EcoSpirits. Basically, all it does is eliminate single-use glass by delivering alcohol, wine, and spirits in this green box. It is still glass—which most bartenders, consumers, and distributors prefer as a material—but it is reused up to 150 times. That one green box saves 600 glass bottles, an entire pallet of product in its lifecycle, before it is recycled. It’s not rocket science—it’s a keg for booze. But if you connect everyone together and tell the story around it, you can make a huge payback. Our mission is to eliminate as much of those 70 billion glass bottles as we can. Thank you.
Trade Marketing Strategies for Spirits Brands
Lindsey Johnson (0:23)
Hi everyone, thank you all for being here today. My name is Lindsey Johnson, and I am the founder of Lush Life Productions. We are the first trademarked, dedicated trade marketing agency. All we do all day is make sure that there are opportunities for bartenders, and we do that with the help of our partners, who are spirits brands for the most part, though we work with all kinds of folks across the industry.
Lindsey Johnson (1:09)
I started this company 17 years ago as a response to a lot of brands not really knowing how to effectively work with and talk to bartenders. When we take on a project at Lush Life, we first consider how it will benefit the community. We turn down more work than we take because if a project doesn’t pass this stress test, we won’t do it. Education is always a top priority for us, as is ensuring diversity and inclusion are built into all of the work that we do.
Lindsey Johnson (2:46)
Trade marketing is essentially designing programs that engage and work with bartenders, servers, and barbacks, ensuring that people who work in hospitality have access to education, opportunities, and space to talk about issues that matter to them. Trade marketing is not bullying bars, forcing yourself on folks, or talking down about other brands. We all work in the same industry and share the goal of taking care of guests, which requires a healthy ecosystem across bartenders, brand teams, sales teams, compliance partners, and agencies.
Lindsey Johnson (5:23)
Proper planning and budgeting are essential:
- Lead Time: Give partners enough time to execute successfully, and ensure dates are properly communicated across all teams using a project manager or calendar.
- Budgeting: Establish a clear budget upfront to set proper expectations. Budget 30% extra for unexpected costs, inflation, or items forgotten along the way.
- Media Assets: Do not cut photography and videography from your budget, as proof of these events is critical for telling the brand’s story and maintaining momentum.
Lindsey Johnson (9:22)
When executing outreach and events:
- Audience Quality: An engaged, trusting audience is far more valuable than a large, unengaged one.
- Inclusivity: Actively create space for the broader hospitality community by eliminating high costs to attend.
- Hospitality Standards: When hosting parties or trips, always provide food and water, host the drinks, and ensure every detail of the guest experience is thoughtfully managed from start to finish.
Lindsey Johnson (14:53)
Beyond parties and trips, brands can utilize digital classes, replicable market events, and purpose-driven activities. When running competitions, focus on building a meaningful experience that takes care of the community rather than just extracting contact information. In the digital space, leverage distance learning and geo-targeted content to reach bartenders in smaller markets, and always compensate trade professionals for their time and expertise when they teach or participate.
Connect with Gen Z | A Cocktail Bar’s Journey to Capturing Their Attention
Jake Hodas (0:10)
I’m from New York City. I am the co-owner of Lullaby, a cocktail bar in the Lower East Side—sort of a pandemic baby. It started with just me and my business partner hanging out in each other’s apartments, talking about the bars that we wished we were at. One thing led to another, a few YouTube tutorials on how to make a business plan later, and we eventually signed a lease and opened Lullaby. I’ll just jump into the presentation. So, this is “Beating the Algorithm: Capturing Gen Z’s Attention Span.”
Jake Hodas (1:00)
Marketing a bar on social media is difficult. Hospitality is not as conducive to the digital space as other industries like retail, entertainment, or fitness. Squeezing hospitality into the tight confines of a digital medium has proven difficult, largely arising from confusion around what the product being marketed actually is. As a bar, it can be easy to narrow the scope to just the drinks. When we opened Lullaby, we made a list of our favorite bars and examined what made them our favorites—from dance clubs to dive bars to cocktail bars. We realized none of them were our favorites solely because of the drinks they served. We wanted to fill a void in the industry by creating a bar equally committed to every aspect of the experience.
Jake Hodas (2:18)
This was particularly important to us because we believe that our product isn’t actually the drink, but the experience itself. Cocktails are part of this experience, but so is the lighting, the music, the ambiance, the conversation with your bartender and other guests, and the shot you take for the road. It’s the feeling that arises from their congruence that makes people want to return. While a picture is never going to capture all of an experience, we believe the best way to represent our hospitality in a photo is by capturing pictures of our smiling guests. Ultimately, in any marketing, you’re marketing an experience—you’re selling a celebration.
Jake Hodas (3:37)
In coming up with our social media approach, we centered on the guest because the experience is both for and about them. We partnered with our friends at Manual, a camera and photography company based out of New York City that aligns with our culture. We collaborated to create custom disposable cameras that we pass out to our guests on a regular basis. They fill them up with pictures of their friends, return them to us, and Manual develops them to put on our Instagram feed. In this way, our social media is crowdsourced by the guest for the guest to most accurately represent the Lullaby experience, cultivating a sense of community ownership.
Jake Hodas (4:32)
We recognize that it can be difficult for traction on social media to translate to actual business. When you’re looking at Gen Z—a group that has had iPhones and social media since the start of their adolescent social development—they are the most technologically and media-literate generation to date. On top of a savvy that allows them to subconsciously cut through targeted posts and ads in a fraction of a second, there is also a jaded disposition to the digital bombardment of consumer marketing.
Jake Hodas (5:28)
The way to cut through all of this is actually to take a more humanistic approach, which we believe leaves the most resounding impression. As the world becomes increasingly digital and remote, hospitality is actually unadaptable, and that’s not a bad thing. We’re proudly human; it’s our industry’s strength, and we believe we should do all that we can to preserve that. Thank you very much.
More Resources For You
How Gen Z is Influencing the Modern Beverage Industry
How to Import Alcohol Samples Into the U.S.
How to Develop a Retail Channel Strategy