006 | Hunting Bars: how to start selling a new Drinks Brand in a city | Part 1/2 of the Interview with Mike McGrail from the Drinks Noise Podcast (Edinburgh, UK)

Hello, I'm Mike McGrail and this is episode two of the Drinks Noise podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Today I'm interviewing Chris McPhail, an on trade marketing specialist who delivers excellent advice in a straight up no nonsense way. So without further ado, here is the chat.

On the line I have Chris Maffeo, he is an expert in the world of on trade marketing and he's joining us today from Prague in The Czech Republic. Chris, how are you?

Hi, Thanks for having me. All good here. Thanks.

No, you're welcome. Thanks for coming on. So before we dig deep into the world of on trade marketing, please do give the listeners a little history of yourself and how you're now in the position to be able to give the excellent advice you do in this world.

Fantastic. So just a short introduction. So I've been in the industry for quite a while. I started twenty years ago, more or less in sales, in the on trading room, back in Italy where I'm from. And that's where I basically started to get acquainted with drinks brands and we were doing some launches of extensions back then, were not called Ad Agencies or RTDs yet.

Then I travelled quite a lot across Europe, so I lived in six different countries and worked in branding agencies first and then I joined S. A. B. Miller a decade ago, twelve years ago to be exact. And then I've been working on various different brands like the global brands team with, so Peroni, Astrazzurro, Piltz Neer, Urquel, Grolch, Miller.

Then

I

moved on to Asahi in the transition with the acquisition of ABI and then I moved into Carlsberg in Copenhagen at the headquarter. And since the last three and a half years, I work on my own. So I've set up my own company called Mafeo Drinks and I'm advising mainly spirits brands, but also still beer and mainly for the European markets and The US. So that's, let's say, in a nutshell, where I'm coming from and where my experience from the drinks industry and particularly the entree comes from.

Great, thanks for that, Chris. It's certainly an incredible background and experience and in different markets as well, which is always great experience to have. Yeah, I came across you, I think it was probably on LinkedIn first of all, just someone had liked or commented on a piece of advice you'd given out and I just thought, wow, this guy has to be listened to. And just actually, one of the things that I really appreciate about your advice is that it's just straight to the point. Here's the reality of things.

And I think I want to kind of build this chat around taking a new spirits brand or a challenger brand and advising them on the path to follow without giving all your secrets away of course, Chris, because you are a business and you've also got your brilliant newsletter that people can sign up to and I will definitely let you plug that at the end. So let's take it back to basics and a lot of people that are listening will understand this, but why is the on trade absolutely vital when you're starting to build your brand, your product is ready, it's in hand and you need to get it out there. Why is the on trade still key?

Absolutely, I mean, like this is a very interesting question because I was actually discussing this with quite a few different leaders last week in Paris. The thing is that, let's say, the on trade has been challenged now during, of course, the pandemic. And a lot of companies have taken a bit of a strange look at it, because of course, some companies haven't lost volume in total because they kind of like recouped from D2C or off trade. So they're questioning the importance of on trade. And I'm a big, big fan of the on trade because I mean, that's the main channel where you can get liquid on lips.

So that would be my first answer. So especially if you take a premium products, mean, you're based in Scotland. So of course, that's a bit of a given to talk about Scotch whisky. If you take a bottle that costs, I mean like £50 to, I don't know, 100 and even more, you want to be sure before spending that money of what you're buying, you know, and you want to try, you want to have a drum first, you know, before actually buying the full bocso. So what is a better arena than enjoying it in a bar where actually there is an open bocso drink and taste.

So that is the main point for me. Then, which is a very basic point, you said, I'm quite straightforward on these things. Then the second one is obviously the ambience and the experience. You can enjoy the brand in a natural environment. Like be like going to the zoo, know, like looking at the tigers.

This is the perfect arena. You know, the brands are enjoyed in general in a bar environment, whether it's a restaurant, a bar, of course, it depends on the occasion, on the category, But on average, that's the perfect arena way to really experience the brand in a real life where the brand positioning comes to life in the best way. And then you can actually start to really understand, okay, this is what this brand stands for in terms of taste and in terms of, let's say, look and feel, brand imagery and so on. And then I can actually go and buy it in a shop, which is a more transactional situation and bring it home and then continue to consume it in a different kind of occasion in a home environment.

Yeah, no, that's great, isn't it? I think that liquid ellipse is always going to be vital, but I love what you're saying there about the experience, the atmosphere, the ambience, trying something for the first time in a bar with friends or loved ones, and that kind of aligned experience can really take it to the next level, instead of maybe just, I don't know, going online ordering the bottle to the house and then the first time you pour it, it can be very different and it just can reinforce how amazing that kind of first encounter with any spirit or drink can be when it's done well. And of course the product has to be excellent, then the activation of that and the entree where possible also has a massive factor in that success. So we understand why it's important, but I mean, so let's say I've started McGrail whiskey, it's a single malt, it's premium of course, I've got it in hands and I need to start this distribution in the on trade. How do I decide what type of venue to approach and how do I go about doing that in an effective way?

So basically, I mean, like the way I see things and this is based on my experience on different countries. I think from a mean, branding background from branding agency like back in the days and it was always about consumer now, like so you always look at this, you know, consumer, target consumer, target persona, however, agencies or people call it. I'm a little bit sceptic anymore about using that because for me it all goes down to the occasion. So what is the actual occasion that you want to address? So you start the brand from, let's say, intrinsic and extrinsic.

So intrinsics, I mean the liquids, know, of course, a gin it could be botanicals, for whisky, of course, is like the malt grain and anything that you're using, the finish in barrels and so on. And then you want to create a brand positioning that in my opinion needs to be translated into a commercial proposition. Proposition. So what does that mean in terms of bars and restaurants? So I always give the example, like if you take, let's say a brand, you know, you have all this brand imagery, fantastic, you know, people sipping it on a river boat in the Lake Como and so forth.

But if I'm a sales guy in a wholesaler, you know, what does that mean for me? You know, like I cannot just go and open Google and search best bars in Milan, best bars in London, best bars in Anjinbra, because that's where everybody wants to go to. So of course they are the best bars in that city, but they may not be the best bars for my brand. So try to redirect brand owners to what does your brand mean in terms of target occasion, you know, of bar, type of restaurants or is it are you are you targeting? Mean, now of course, like whisky is more specific, but it could be like a pre dinner kind of occasion, like imagine like an aperitif or a vermouth and so on.

It could be a more of an after dinner kind of occasion. So it could be a bitter, a distillates or a cognac, a whisky and so forth. It could be something that goes with a meal. And and based on that, have to transform, you you have to identify the right outlets for that particular occasion so that the brand will resonate with them. Then, you know, and this is the very basic part.

Then of course, like your brand imagery, your brand positioning comes to life. Easy the more are you, you know, do you care about sustainability? So you may have certain types of bars that are much more inclined to have a product that is focusing on sustainability? Or are you more like a kind of like a blink blink kind of brand? So then you may go on to certain type of bars that value the appearance over, I don't want to say it's substance, but you know what I mean.

So it depends on the kind of brand world that you have created, which is the extrinsic part, together with the intrinsic part, is basically the taste profile and the liquid in the bottle. And then basically you really identify and always say try to identify two or three typologies only. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean that you will not sell elsewhere. So of course you're going to scale, but you need to niche down to a handful of typologies of bars.

So it could be like a whisky bar, like a cocktail bar, or it could be, I don't know, like an Italian restaurant and a seaside venue, like a waterfront venue. So identify depending on what your brand looks like, try to identify the couple of typologies that when you talk to a wholesaler salesforce, basically you can redirect them and say these are the three types of bars that I want you to go in Edinburgh. These are the three types of bar I want you to go to in London. Because otherwise, like a lot of people end up basically like quoting the 50 best bars or, you know, like some of the Michelin star restaurants. And that's where, you know, they aren't anybody hunting list anyway.

It's quite challenging to actually, you know, stand out because, you know, you are fighting with basically all the huge brands, all the up and coming brands, you know, and that's up. That's an appeal situation.

Yeah, no, really clear there. Don't think that targeting the big ticket, of the tree bars and venues is going to be the way to go in the early days because ultimately getting in there is just going to be an extreme uphill battle, it sounds like, which makes perfect sense. So once we have identified our types of bars or venues that we think are right for the brand, we've then got to go and approach them. So first and foremost, who are the people that we need to impress within a bar, let's call it a bar, to get their time in the first place and then at least try to push towards an order. Who are the big decision makers?

So this is another very interesting conversation because let's say, the way I see it is that you should have been, you know, you should have created demand before you actually engage them into that kind of conversation. And what I mean by this is that you need to let's look at two different parts. So one, the first part is creating the demand for your brand. And then the second part, which is your question, is capturing the demand for your brand. And if you haven't done the first one, you cannot really succeed in the latter unless you of course, you are lucky or you have some connections.

And what I mean by that is that before, like salespeople used to create the demand and capture the demand at the same time. So I was a sales guy in, I don't know, twenty years ago, forty years ago, I would go to your bar and I would basically propose you some brands and you would rely on me almost because like I would be the one who knows most of stuff because there was no digital, there was no internet, you had very few connections and you only knew people in your neighborhood kind of thing. Nowadays bar owners and bar managers and bartenders, they are overwhelmed with possibilities. So they speak, you know, they have huge communities, WhatsApp groups, you know, all sorts of social media. They have a lot of competition like all the big brands that are, you know, making them travel everywhere.

So everybody really knows already more or less what they want to list in terms of brands in their bar. So how do they want to fill their back bar? So if you haven't done that step of creating the demand, which happens on social media, I mean, podcasts, you know, all these things that we are basically doing every day, you and I. Basically like you risk that you enter a bar and you start talking to somebody that doesn't want to buy, you know, like you're basically nuisance to that person because it's like, okay, this is Mike and you know, who is he? And I don't want to talk to him because I've never heard about his whisky and nobody of my peers have mentioned that whisky and I'm quite into the whisky community.

And if I don't know him, then probably I don't want to risk buying a bottle from him because he will collect dust on my shelf. So that is the risky bit. And of course, this long is term game. I mean, it's not easy. But this is really needed because that's how we met.

We got in touch on, I think it was LinkedIn. And, you know, it's by bringing our messages out there that we start to engage with each other and then we end up, you know, knowing each other and talking about each other and trusting each other kind of thing. So it's a bit of a long path to really build your brand that happens outside of the bar. And then you go into the bar and engage with the bartender, with the owner and so on. And what I always say is that once that you're doing that step, don't only take the fancy routing, so to say, so don't only ask for the owner, for the brand manager, because there's a lot of people, you know, from the, let's say, let's call it like the lower end of the bar.

So from the bar back up to the chain that actually can drive the decision making process for you. And it's going to be quite challenging to get the phone number or the email address of the owner, because most probably the owner is never there and there is a bar manager that pretends he's not in charge of decisions and so on. So you are going to end up in this kind of like bouncing left and right on come back in two weeks, come back in next month and the owner is on holidays and, you know, leave me a sample, I'll talk to them and so forth. So try to really build this availability bottom up once that you have the opportunity and take really like this kind of like routes that, you know, it seems to be very long, long term, like a very long term game. But that's actually the more organic thing you can do, in my opinion.

Yeah, absolute gold there. And you're absolutely right, on a day to day basis and my role in whiskey, I am consumer facing, but I have to start at the top of the marketing funnel, which is the awareness of the brands in the first place, and then push people in towards consideration and preference. And you're doing that exactly in this scenario, but okay, we can class it as B2B, but ultimately everybody's a consumer. And I think especially in something like the entree, like you say, you've got this real community around bartenders and if they're not talking about your brands, when you walk in there, you say, then yeah, it's gonna be really difficult to get in there. And it's almost like the bartender can really become the champion for you, can't they?

They can say to their bar manager, I've been hearing about this brand, they dropped in today, here's a sample, we should really consider this. And yeah, sometimes people always think in any business to business marketing scenario that you've got to go to the top of the tree, but getting their attention is always difficult, right?

Absolutely. And this is the challenge because once that you have your own brand, then you want to rush it, you want to start selling. But the thing is that you like, know, like you risk too, like the risk is too high to get the door on your face. Imagine like people are now like contacted by random people every day, you know, several times a day. So it's not anymore like it used to be back in the days that one salesperson would step in, you know, once a day, you know, now they're basically always having to find excuses like now, sorry, the owner is not here.

Now the bar manager is not here. You know, I've seen it happen so many times. You know, the owner was pretending to be a, you know, a waiter just to just to get rid of someone, someone in the bar, you know, and that's that's what happens. That's the reality, unfortunately. So you have to really create this community and really put the foot in the door so that people start to talk about you.

And also the other advice I would give and I always give is that, you know, be a consumer. So be a customer before becoming a seller. So enter that bar, have a drink, you know, that should be the first marketing investment you do in a bar, you know, like don't just go there with a backpack full of bottles and ask for the owner to sell them something, you know, sit at the bar, chill during off peak times, obviously, you know, speak to the bartender when like he or she is less busy and say, okay, I'd like to drink something, know, start engage them in the conversation, start to get insights from them. What do you usually, what do you recommend? What do you like?

And start to get into the conversation with them. And then maybe not even that day, maybe next time or at the end of the session, you actually say, oh, actually I have my own whisky, Do you want to do you want to taste it? Or maybe I can stop by next week for a tasting with you and your bar manager, you know, and that's a different kind of conversation because, you know, you bought a drink, you left the tip and then it's already like, okay, this guy is actually, know, much more, you know, he's not that salesy and he's not that pushy like the previous guys were.