054 | How to Build a Drink Brand Bottom-up | Chris Maffeo with Vani Gupta Dandia (New Delhi, India)

Welcome to the Maffeo Drinks Podcast, I m your host Chris Maffeo. In episode 54 I had the pleasure of speaking with Vani Gupta Dandia. I was a guest in her Marketing with Vani podcast, where she interviews marketing people from various industries. We dived into the drinks industry, looking at it from outside. I hope you will enjoy our chat.

Thank you, Clarisse. So why don't we start with an introduction? Tell us a little about your sense.

I'm Italian. I'm originally from Rome, but I've lived eighteen years abroad in six countries in Europe. But I've been working with many countries all around the world. And my background, I started in agencies, so branding agencies. And then at some point I felt the need of growing client side.

So I entered a multinational, S. B. Miller, which doesn't exist anymore. Now it's, it was split up. And then I transitioned into Carlsberg and after many years in multinationals, then I decided to go on my own.

And I started Mafel Drinks, which is my consulting company. I help companies build their brands bottom up. I think we will deep dive more later into what I mean by bottom up, but it's basically a very pragmatic approach to brand building that blends marketing and sales in a coherent way. Because the driver of starting my company was basically, I was tired of all these arguments and fights between marketing and sales. And I said to myself, there is a way to, to make this left and right arm cooperate together and build brands.

So, that is in a nutshell, what I do. And I have a podcast, the Mafel Drinks podcast.

It's amazing how sales and marketing being at Loggerheads is a theme across the world, across organizations. It's the same thing that you hear everywhere, irrespective of category. And I love what you said that it doesn't have to be like that. At the end of the day, marketing has to help the business grow. And if marketing is not helping the business grow, then something is not right.

So marketing and sales have to work together. But before we come to your bottoms out approach, Chris, tell me how is building a brand for an alcohol beverage different from building a brand in any other category, say color cosmetics or anything else?

The theory is the same, I would say. What changes in alcohol brands is that the fact that you are more like outspoken about it. So if you take, I don't know, a cosmetic brand, it's a little bit more personal. Like you, you at least speak about it with your close friends and so on, but you don't, you don't walk into an office saying, oh, do you want to smell my perfume or feel my hands, how soft they are face in the screen. So with alcoholic brands, if you walk into a bar, there is a more intrinsic element.

So I like certain liquids and I want to drink that liquid, but there is an extrinsic element, which is more like a show off approach where I want to be seen with that bottle of vodka. I want to be seen drinking that whiskey. I want to show off in ordering, and I want to be perceived as a connoisseur on that front.

I'm hearing you say two kinds of things. One you're saying is that there are kinds of consumers. I may have a particular kind of a drink. I'm a whiskey person, or I'm a gin and tonic person, or I'm a vodka person. Maybe that's one very stereotypical way of categorizing the consumer, but we'll come to that as well, because I know you have a point of view on that.

And the second point would be that I could want is very projection led. It's very imagery led. It's not just about me having a whisky evening, it's about which whisky am I seen ordering. Let's talk about the first kind. Is it true that in the world of alcohol consumers that there is a whisky consumer versus a vodka versus or are there moments of consumption?

I have a whisky evening and then I have a gin and tonic somehow.

You are touching me on a very personal crusade that I'm having in the last couple of years against target consumers. And I'm a big fan of target occasion versus target consumers. Now, of course it's not black and white. It starts like you rightfully said. I'm a gin and tonic type of drinker.

So that, let's say the majority of what you do could lean into something. So for example, I love pizza. It doesn't mean that I only eat pizza. It's part of the pool of things that I like as a food. Same thing as with drinks.

So it could be that if I go out and I personally go out in certain occasions, I may skew towards gin and tonic, but that's mainly driven in my opinion by the fact that's what I'm used to. And that's maybe what I got introduced to by some friends. But in reality, it all goes back to the occasion because I may drink, for example, a gin and tonic when I go out and sit outside on a terrace in the sun. But that occasion actually is not only a gin and tonic occasion. It could be a spritz occasion.

It could be a light beer occasion. It could be a prosaic or champagne occasion. We tend to picture these target personas, but then all these target persona overlap. And I always give the example of I'm a Negroni type of drinker. I like to drink just like default to Negroni.

So if I don't want to think, but then if I'm out with my wife on a terrace outside and she's always ordering spritz, then I'll, I may say, okay, two spritzes. So I just default on what's easier because there is this element with consumer, especially in drinks that you default to the path of least resistance. If you are with five people and four ordering gin and tonic, you will order gin and tonic too. So you want to blend in a category. The other thing is that when you say the whiskey guy or the gin and tonic person or whatever, ultimately goes back to taste profile.

So you like gin because first of all, because traditionally you may have been skewed towards gin because of the nationality you're from. Maybe gin could be a bigger thing in Britain, but less of a thing in in Italy, for example. So it goes back to a few elements that I would say, for example, there's the raw material elements. So I may like, I don't know, grapes or grain or fruits or a certain level of ABV. So for example, you may be put off by a Negroni because it's too alcoholic.

And then you would go with a Spritz because it's less alcoholic. Then there is the element of maturation processing. It could be on barrels. Okay. I want to have it like aged.

You know, it's a whiskey that is aged or it's a product that is aged. So many times when you skew towards the category and you think you are a whiskey person, there are some elements that you like about that. It could the aging, it could be the certain flavor, it could be smokiness because you want to have a smoky scotch or it could be, you know, the sweetness of a bourbon compared to a scotch. You know, like, so there are these kinds of elements and we tend to forget that, that in the end we oversimplify by saying I'm a gin person, but what I may like is, okay, maybe it's botanicals, maybe it's actually the tonic that I like. I could have bought Katonig and it would be exactly the same.

Very interesting, which means that it's important to pull out what is the real bit that's appealing to this consumer Or what are the elements we can break this down into? And then if, for example, if you're a tonic kind of person, then there are resilient other tonic cocktails that can be offered to this consumer.

And that's a great way to actually bridge between categories. Like people think of the main big categories, no? Whiskey, vodka, rum, gin, all this agave nowadays and so on. But in reality, you may be able to trade in people through another category. Because when we are in big companies or conversations, it's always, oh, we are the number one in this category, no?

But in reality, for example, if you take Mestal, which is smoky, could be easy to trade in from a scotch, like a peated scotch drinker, which is also smoky. So it's like you have some elements of botanicals. Maybe you could trade in vermouth, which is very rich in botanicals with gin, which is also rich in botanicals. So maybe we would do a vermouth and tonic instead of a gin and tonic because maybe what you realize is actually, oh, I thought I liked gin, but actually I like the botanical element of gin.

Very interesting, which means that marketers then have a whole different way of even looking at where they stand in the category. Like you said, it's very typical of all brand managers and this is typical of all categories. And similarly so for alcohol, instead of just looking at your market share within that narrow vertical, think about it could be market share therefore not just by botanicals in the botanicals, could even be market share by consumer occasion. All the tag parties for example, whether there is a certain kind of a mood and it's associated more with beer. Instead of beer, could there be another drink that makes an entry and still provides exactly that kind of light merriment amongst a bunch of guys or it's also very difficult to think of guys and beer which is also not right and I heard someone say I was walking down the alcohol aisle one day and someone looked at me and he picked up this, this vodka, which was a premix with some lemon and something else.

And he said, look, now this drink is a more ladylike drink. What exactly is ladylike about

No. This is another point I'm very passionate about because it's totally untrue. When I see a PowerPoint deck, no, and it's okay, we are 50% men or women or 20% women, 80% men. It doesn't mean anything because it's about palates. Maybe it's for people that like citrusy taste profile because there's lemon in it.

No. Or some other drinks, it could be like with people with a bit of a sweet tooth. I'm a bitter type of guy and I'm not a sour type of guy. So I don't like whiskey sour, Pisco sour. I don't like all the sour drinks.

I like the bitter drinks. So to balance the sweetness, I want to balance it with bitterness and not with sourness. So for me personally, that's why I always skew towards the Negroni or the Campari because it's, it suits my taste profile. And I realized, for example, that I used not to be a gin drinker because I didn't like that there was always lime or lemon in the gin and tonic. And I hated that kind of like overpowering lemony citrusy flavor.

So it wasn't about the gin. It was about this overwhelming citrus elements that I didn't like. And that goes back to men, women, you could be skewed towards like sweet fruits or more sour kind of fruits. And then again, we go back to the element of crossing between categories. And to your previous point, I would say it's also because companies want to track things and then sometimes they track what they can track, even though they know it's wrong.

I love that. I want a times we track by what can be tracked. 100%.

And that is the thing because obviously categories are easier to track than to your previous element, aperitif moments or an after dinner moment that you cannot but it doesn't mean that it's not correct. So it doesn't mean that you should still be in your bubble of vodka. When I used to work on pepperoni, I was working like very often on this because I said, we are targeting this aperitif moment. And for me, I'm fighting spritz, I'm fighting gin and tonic, I'm fighting Prosecco, I'm fighting many other things and I don't care about other beers because the only beer I would fight would be, for example, like a Corona. I'm not fighting an IPA because the IPA doesn't fit into that pre dinner drinks because it's not a pre drinker, but more like something that goes with food or with a burger or with something more.

What is an IPA?

IPA, like it's an India pale ale. So it's a beer that is very rich in hopiness and also quite alcoholic. So it could be like 0.5% ABV. For example, like a pepperoni, like an Italian Mediterranean lager, it would be on a 5.1%. It's not much about the ABV, but it's about the richness of taste.

Like a certain beer that is made for a certain climate and a certain food may be more appropriate for a bruschetta, like tomatoes and mozzarella on bread than on a burger. Because I always go back to the traditional occasion. That's what I meant before about what's your nationality because you skew towards certain habits because that's how your palates develop. It's your country that likes spicy food. Do they like light food?

Do they like fish or do they not like fish? I live in Prague and usually people are not so used to fish or let's say fishy kind of flavors. And the people that are more used to meat because it's a landlocked country, they may not like it. I always like to play with these elements to really localize the strategy to the country and understand, okay, what do these people usually like and how can we play not against them, with them. Because you cannot change the habits of a nation with a brand.

You will need trillions of dollars to change the consumption habits on food and beverages.

It's a very interesting thing that you've said, Chris, because alcohol, like you said right at the beginning, it's very projection oriented. It's a lot about showing to the world oh I'm this kind of a person. I have the expensive whiskey and I don't have cheap whiskey. Right now I'm seeing and I saw this in the papers as well it's becoming very fashionable to collect gins from all around the world. Like you just said, even about the palate and the combination, the wines or alcohol is meant to complement the palate that you're accustomed to.

Even over here, and I would imagine that the degree of education would vary in different parts of the world, but because it is so projection oriented, this whole category is so much about imagery, is there a role that brands can play even in educating consumers, do they? And how do brands play this insecurity to their advantage, which is have this kind of a whiskey because it makes you look like this kind of a person?

For me, the way forward on doing this is to really keep it very simple and be able to have a couple of elements to explain to people why they should drink that, like the reasons behind it in a very simple way. And then you expand because for me, it's about, I imagine I come for dinner at your place and I bring you a bottle of whatever that was gin or wine or something. There is a lot talking about storytelling, no? But I'm always distinguishing between what I call the fluffy storytelling and the pragmatic storytelling. So what you want to know is that you want to know something that first of all you understand why I brought it to you and then you can replicate that language with somebody.

Because then the moment you say, oh, why did you buy it? Oh, I bought it at this shop. Okay, I want to buy it again and then I will bring it to my friends. Or maybe I will buy three bottles that when people are coming to my place, I'm going to explain it to them. But it has to be simple in a way that it goes well with this food or the botanicals used here are amplifying that certain taste profile.

Ultimately it's about, I want to explain it in a very simple way and that's why you should have it this way. So for example, we are having an Italian dinner. I may bring you an Italian beer or an Italian wine, but then it would be okay. And then you want to find out more. But I need to give you those couple of two, three ammunitions to sell again to your friends when you explain it again.

So I always bring the example of when a friend of mine came to my place and she brought me a bottle of Andrix gin and I was not a gin drinker. And I was a bit disappointed when she said, oh, it's gin. Was like, oh, no gin. But then she said, if you don't like gin, you will like this one. And then I was like, okay, tell me more.

Now I'm interested. And there is a ritual that goes with the cucumber in the gin and tonic. Like cucumber is one of the elements that is inside the product and it's made for people who don't like gin. She explained it to me. And then I'm like, now I got it.

And then I tasted it. And then the cucumber was making it sweet compared to my previous experience of lemon in the gin and tonic. And then all of a sudden I was like, wow, okay. Now I get it. And now I actually like it.

More importantly, the element was all about the execution because when she told me, we literally went to the shop to buy a cucumber because I didn't have any. She said, you would be surprised. All the bars do it the right way with cucumber. And I was like, come on. It's not possible.

And then we went to two or three bars and they all knew that it was going with cucumber. So ultimately it's because I knew that I could rely on that execution that whenever I was going to order an Hendricks and Tonic, I would get the cucumber and I wouldn't have to discuss with a barman why did you put lime? Why did you put lemon? I don't want lemon and so on. So if you can nail this pragmatic storytelling, like the two, three elements that you want to discuss.

And if you can combine it with a perfect execution in the store or in the bar, that's where you actually win with the Trains brand.

That's a beautiful example, Chris. Now in our country, alcohol advertising is banned. So everything happens on the shelf and everything is all surrogate advertising. But even for other parts of the world, in countries like yours, it's a very mature, evolved category, isn't it? Where you would have unending number of choices in just about anything.

In that world, Chris, tell me, a, what is the role of storytelling? Like you just talked about meaningful storytelling. But this storytelling, one may not always have the ability or the finance capability to promote every brand because storytelling can only be promoted if I had the ability to bring that story to you via some media vehicle. Now where I don't have that luxury, then the packaging or what I do with it on shelf will have to do the talking. Would you tell us a little about just the role of execution in store and the role of packaging?

So, first of all, like the packaging it's crucial and important. My first point would be don't change the packaging unless there are really big issues with your packaging because people want to relate to something they know and they don't want to have the

same Exactly. So you're an old legacy brand. Don't change the packaging for sure, because then you are messing with the memory structure. People wouldn't be able to relate back to, oh, this is the same brand. Perfect.

Yes.

Then the second, of course, you can play with some storytelling, but in a very simple way, example of Hendrix, I remember that I was shocked when I read, there was a small like neck hanger, one of those small booklets on that you put on the boatload and it was saying Drank. Drank by a by a tiny handful of people around the world. And I think it's still there in the packaging. And it's counterintuitive, no, because people always want to show off that they are everywhere, drank by everyone and they're huge and so on. And they was even saying, this gin is not for everyone.

It wasn't like in a show off kind of way because the price point of course it was more expensive, but it wasn't like a super expensive kind of drink. But that is an element that you can play with. But also it's about how fast you want to grow your brand and obviously the resources you have. And to your previous point about your region and India being a dark market in the sense that you cannot, you cannot advertise, That was actually one of the biggest gifts that I had myself because I started working on brands in Scandinavia, which is a dark market as well. And actually started like my previous clients from the branding side were tobacco brands.

So I couldn't I never thought about ADL. Never understood anything about ADL. That goes back to the bottom up way, which is really you have to work with the least resources possible that you have. Imagine it's you alone, money, walking around bars and stores and selling the product yourself. You don't have budget for advertising.

You don't have budget for other things. So how do you scale back to the minimum? So now the most important thing is that we all know that alcoholic brands, the perfect arena are, it's building them in the entree.

On trade you mean like in hotels and

at bars and restaurants, cafes and so on. That is the first thing. But I've always been like, I'm known as an entree guy, but now I'm explaining myself in a different way that I'm a bottom up type of guy, because I'm a big fan of something that is called bottom up trade, which is a nerd. It's the name that I invented. It doesn't exist anywhere.

Because it's not about on trade and off trade. It's not about bars and restaurants and supermarket. It's about where can you actually have some support and help for storytelling apart from the packaging and pricing that you previously stated. Because if I can have, imagine like a small, nice bottle store in Delhi when there is a shop assistant that is very passionate about whiskeys and vodkas and so on and explain it to me. So I can be on my own reading all the packaging and looking at the shelves, but I can ask for help to someone that can actually help me to tell that story, that previous story that I said if I'm coming over for dinner.

And that is exactly the same in a store or in a bar with a bartender. So the way I see the bottom up trade is basically the trade in which you actually build the brand and you don't just sell the brand because either you have a bartender or you have a shop assistant or an owner to help you with making those choices. So I like to picture it in a way that there is someone between you and the bottle. If there is someone between you and the bottle, then you are in a bottom up trade if there is an element of storytelling. It could be a very mainstream bar restaurant where the guy or the girl is just an order taker.

And then you just read the manual and say, oh, gin and tonic. Or it could be like, oh, what would you like to drink? Oh, I'm thinking of having a gin and tonic. Oh, do you want to have it with this gin or with this gin? What food are you planning to eat later?

If you want to have something heavier, then I would recommend this one. If you want to have something light, these botanicals would be overwhelming. So I would recommend this gin that is a little bit lighter in taste profile and so on. That's what companies get wrong. Think that they just segment on trade and off trade.

So bars and restaurants and supermarkets. And they say on trade is where you build the brand, but it's not all on trade is the same because a portrait shop with a nice boutique wine shop is totally different than a supermarket, although you've got the same shell.

Correct. Correct. Like you said, there is a human being between the bottle and the consumer, and you're basically creating brand ambassadors. And those brand ambassadors could be created at the restaurant, at the bar, or equally, like you said, in a boutique shop or even just at the shelf. That's fantastic.

And with that, there was a comment you also made somewhere about how there are brands who think that they can be everything to everyone. And when you try and be everything to everyone, you become nothing to no one. Give us your shortlisted take on that. Although I know you've already spoken a lot about the consumer.

Yeah. Now just to recap, it goes back to what I mean by bottom up, know, because we tend to think, especially big companies tend to think in this kind of like size of price and where can we get, we want to launch this product because we're going to enter this category and we're going to aim for 5% market share and then 10% market share and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then it gets lost in translation and then it's like, okay, but how do you do it? You cannot do helicopter money kind of way. Cannot just do ATL and then you have an army of salespeople that spam the city and put one bottle in all the possible bars and restaurants in that city.

And then you may have made your target. Okay. But then what about next year? And what about next month? Because the product is not rotating.

So the only way for me is to really understand what is the target occasion you want to go for? What is the kind of taste profile? Why do you want to go? Own that niche. Now, some people are against niches and there's a lot of debates about you shouldn't go for a niche and so on.

You want to have people that like this kind of flavor and dislike this thing and then this kind of wood and so on. And then all of a sudden your arena is much smaller and it's much easier for you to actually understand where to fight. Because otherwise then you cannot fight with all the drinks at the bar with 20 cocktails on the menu.

Correct. You don't know where to fight. And besides that, you also find a space in the consumer's mind because now the consumer then this is what this particular brand is about. And if I find a space in the mind, going back to your earlier conversation, if there is that kind of an occasion, if there is that kind of a mood, then I know what brand to pick versus trying to be everything to everyone, because then you become nothing to no one. You're basically very fuzzy and one doesn't know what, why should I be picking up this over others?

There is nothing that you're standing Exactly.

And it goes back to the, to those four or five elements, like the raw material, the ABV, the flavors, the processing and the maturation, because you can play with those. I call them the gateway or the foot in the door, because it could be okay. I like woody kind of thing. Like I like a red wine aged in woods. I may like this very strong kind of flavors.

And then all of a sudden I know already what kind of drinks you may like. If you're a rum drinker or you call yourself a rum drinker, I know that you have probably like a sweet tooth because rum is wheat compared to a whiskey, which is not that sweet. But then maybe if I know that you're into rum, what I would do is that I would either offer you a bourbon if I want to trade you into the whiskey category, because I know it's sweeter because there is maize. Or like maybe I would take a whiskey that has been aged in rum casks. There is that rum element to the whiskey that makes it smoother.

That's how I play with, with my friends when we go out and where we want to have a tasting or stuff. So for example, like I give you a personal example, like whiskey, I got introduced by, I think it was like Laphroaig, so like a smoky Islay whiskey, Scotch whiskey. Then I was trading by the whiskey sour. And then I was like, I don't like whiskey, but it's not that I didn't like whiskey. I didn't like sour.

Then I realized it takes some time. It takes some thinking to be done to know yourself, know, and know your palate. Because I'm a Negroni drinker. A friend of mine said, why don't you have a boulevardier, which is basically like an Negroni. So you have the vermouth, red vermouth, which is wheat.

You have a bitter like Campari, like a red bitter. And then you have gin with Negroni. But then the Boulevardier, you basically switch the gin and you put a bourbon or a whiskey in it. So now for me, that is very smart because you know two out of the three elements that go into that drink. If I give you a neat drum of whiskey, will eat.

But if I give you a little bit of whiskey in a drink that you're used to drink, you will get used to it slowly because it would be like four CL, two CL, one CL or one ounce. And it won't be like a full drink or something. This is how you recruit people into the category by being focused on the niche and on an occasion, because it's like focus on that cocktail. You can be specific as that cocktail. Like Campari is a typical example.

They've been advertising Negroni since ever. Their line was, there is no negroni without Campari. Super easy that's true because they were the bitter that invented them were

the And with which they that they were made a very sharp choice and they've made it very easy for the consumer to remember.

Exactly. In Europe, everybody drinks Negroni. Like I've been seeing that advert all over the place and now everybody pretends to be a Negroni drinker, but I know that some people have been starting to drink it like a year ago. And the thing is that Campari has never changed the strategy. It's not because nobody was drinking Negroni.

They didn't advertise Negroni anymore as, okay, let's change. Let's do something else because people don't like Negroni and Negroni is not trendy. And this is the crucial thing. Yeah.

All of what you're saying are learnings that can be transported to any category. And a lot of it is what I say as well in a different context. And you're talking about it in the context of alcohol, but it's exactly the same marketing principles. And I'm just wondering, going back to what you were saying earlier, I'm thinking I always opt for an old fashioned whiskey and I'm thinking, I'm wondering if it's that if I like that because of the sweet and the orange, or is it really because of the whiskey? Because the meat whiskey, don't like, but old fashioned I do.

So maybe just the sweet and the orange.

Exactly. And then the old fashioned, for example, can be done with rum as well. You can have a rum old fashioned and you could even try because then rum would be sweeter. And then if you like it more, then you will see what you actually like. And this is again, another point like the old fashioned is a great example of trading people into whisky because of the sugar element.

It's very easy to drink, like compared to a whisky to any kind of whisky.

Exactly.

When you think about that, then how to play and then it's okay, sweet element I'm going to put in to balance the sourness or the bitter? And then you can play because otherwise then cocktail would be just like pouring stuff into a glass that doesn't make any sense. It would be either too strong or too weak, or you wouldn't put like apple juice and pineapple juice and orange juice into a glass. It wouldn't make sense. You just have something random as a juice.

Okay. One more question for you, Chris, which is can a brand work across generations? For example, an expensive whiskey, which has very heavy smoky notes, would it be fair to say that if you were to not think of the consumer as specific demographic segments, which is not divide them by such and such age, such gender, living in blah, blah, blah cities, blah. If you were to not use that stereotypical demographic classification, would a brand come to you and say, dear Chris, I want my brand to have appeal across generations. So it doesn't feel like the old daddy brand, or it doesn't feel like the young teeny pop up brand.

I want my brand to have appeal across generations, whether it's someone just out of college equally, someone sitting at the study with a cigar in his mouth.

Actually, this is very interesting because I discussed this. I had a presentation at Barconvent in Berlin, which is the biggest spirits fair in Europe, probably in the world. And we were talking about the title was Demystifying Gen Z. My take on that one, because I'm not really a big fan of this kind of like Gen Z, Gen X and millennials and so on. We always say like it takes twenty years to make an overnight success.

Ultimately twenty years is a generation. So it depends when you start your brand. Of course, you will probably chances are that you're not starting exactly when a new generation is starting or when a new generation is turning 18 or 21, whatever the legal drinking age is. But for me, ultimately it goes back to what we were saying before about the focus and the niche and the target occasion. So if you are talking about a specific occasion, it doesn't matter who wants to enter that occasion.

Of course, a certain occasion may be skewed towards certain demographics, but ultimately, again, it's about the taste profile. For example, like it's to your point, like a smoky aged whiskey, the barriers would be that it's probably expensive and it's very strong in ABV and possibly in taste profile. So a younger person may be put off by one or old or all those elements because, okay, they may not be rich, but it could be that, okay, I have a rich father and he's drinking that. And every once in a while it tells me that I can open that bottle and drink it with him. In that sense, a 22 year old person may be able to drink that thing because the price point is fine and because he's not paying for it.

And the taste profile is fine because it's getting used to it from a younger age. In that element, you make it across generation, but the importance is not to alienate people because ultimately if the occasion is ultimately about, I don't know, indulgence in a small group of friends sitting in a relaxed environment, in a low tempo kind of environment, then all generations are welcoming to that. It's a little bit like with cars. Okay. I may like BMW since I was a child.

It doesn't mean that I will buy a five series when I'm 18. I may buy when I'm but then either you make something that is more accessible because maybe there is an element that has an easier taste profile on the same brand that appeal to people with a lighter taste profile, not younger people. For me it's not about the age, It's about that probably a younger person doesn't have a palate that is as developed as an older person, it could be that it is already. And then if you take an Indian person that is so used to spiciness, maybe much more ahead or a German person is not used to spicy food. So it's not about the age, it's about the palate ultimately.

Very interesting and like you earlier said that there may be a way of recruiting this person even into, let's say a heavy smoking whiskey with the right kind of cocktail.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And then again, it goes back to price points because maybe a very expensive whiskey doesn't make sense to put it in a cocktail because of the price point, because the cocktail will cost you crazy money. But then you can use it as a modifier. So for example, sometimes what I do is that I like, I just ask the bartender to put very tiny, like an half a ounce of a very expensive pitted whiskey in my drink.

So the body is a regular whiskey, but then I like to add a little dash just to give some flavor because I like the smokiness of that whiskey, for example. And then maybe they do it to me as a favor if I'm in a bar that I know, or they just charge me like a very little. It's not that I didn't ask for two ounces of that expensive whiskey. I asked for half an, half an ounce. So you can play also with those things and make it more affordable to you.

Very interesting. It almost sounds like this category is so much similar to fragrances, isn't it? Because you have to have very discerning abilities, of course, at a certain age, but it's also about a certain kind of a drink for a certain mood, because which actually brings me to this question, Chris. Is algo a real functional or is it entirely recreational?

I wouldn't really call it functional, I have to say, but there is an element of flavor that could make it in the sense that if I want to have it as a pairing to food, it becomes functional because I want something that complements my food. In that moment, it becomes functional. Then if I'm having a party and it's at 2AM in a club, of course it's recreational in that sense. But then it could be functional in the sense that if you try to do it, if you go to a Michelin star restaurant and you have a wine pairing, I would argue that the wine pairing is functional in that moment because it's recreational. But if you give me the wrong wine with that dish, it would give me a totally wrong experience.

Which means that this is a category that requires tremendous amount of education.

It does. Going back to your point about target personas and different kinds of people, I see it myself. I have a lot of bottles of alcohol and it depends on who's coming for dinner and I take different bottles out. It doesn't matter your level of education, but if you are keen to learn, I'm willing to let you try some of my expensive stuff. But again, if you tell me that your palate is not ready, I may take something that is it doesn't mean that it's bad, but it's more appropriate for you.

Because if I give you a 20 six years old whiskey and you say, I've never tried whiskey, I'm basically firming your palate. Like I'm giving you the worst experience you've ever had in your life. But if you are like, I love whiskey, but I can't afford expensive whiskeys and I always drink this and this. And then I get a picture of what type of whiskeys you like. I know you can't afford special ones.

And then I say, Manny, try this

You will

like it. Only it's a different occasion, but then if it's a big party, I'm not going to say I'm going to lock my close-up. I don't want people just grabbing your bottle and pouring half a glass of expensive whiskey because they wouldn't even notice what they're drinking. And this is the thing that I'm the same exact person. But then if I go to a barbecue, I will bring a certain bottle of whiskey or rum.

And if I go to a nice dinner and I know you're having expensive wines for dinner, then I'm saying, I'll take care of the whiskey and I'll bring you some nice bottles of honey.

Wow. Gosh. That sounds it's very complex.

It's ultimately is very simple. Like the thinking behind is very complex. I agree. But ultimately when you distill it down into a very simple strategy and you say, okay, we have to go to these three types of bars and restaurants. We are targeting this cocktail.

We're targeting this drinking occasion. Go and just talk about that all the time.

Ringan, I love that. And I love that. I'm a great proponent of that. Exactly what you said even about the Kabbari. I'm a great proponent of that.

But have you heard this? I'm sure you would have heard this from your clients. Dear Chris, please build the brand for me, but I also need sales starting tomorrow.

Yes. This is one of the challenges that I get sometimes when I write on LinkedIn every day. Like some people is like, oh man, this stuff is too slow. And it's first of all, to build it top down may be perceived faster, but you're basically burning millions. Exactly.

Yeah. So building a brand slowly is hard. Building a brand fast is hard on your wallet.

Exactly.

And the other thing is finding the middle. So what we were talking about at the beginning, the sales and marketing together. So the way I crack that is that I say, okay, you have some fancy bars, for example, but then you have some very regular bars and restaurants that are suitable for the occasion that are image led. So if you have a matrix again on the Y axis, you have image and premiumness or however you want to call it. And then on the other end, you've got like the volume.

The Y axis on the premiumness kind of thing, you may want to approach only the 50 best bars and all the fancy bars, but they will not But ruin then there are a lot of bars and restaurants that they can buy it at the right price point. So extend the distribution to those if they can guarantee a certain rotation. So a certain velocity of the brand, like a sales rotation. There is nothing wrong in selling to a regular restaurant that is nothing fancy, but they can, it's suitable that occasion and everybody after dinner are going to have a drink and they're going to have a whiskey, a drum of whiskey or an Amaro or a bitter or an after dinner drink because people are into that. So go to those places and that's where you get the money to reinvest in the fancy places.

Because people just look at it very selectively. I always say it's not a pyramid in segmentation. It's a square, it's a rectangular shape because you need to account that element of volume because I had zillions fights and I was the guy that was wrong. I was the marketeer in the Ivory Tower back in the day saying, don't enlarge, don't extend distribution. You have to be all in gold outlet and gold and silver and don't go to bronze outlets and so on.

But ultimately it's not about the distribution. It's about the rotation with growing the distribution. So if I can go to five average bars and those five average bars guarantee a certain rotation of the product, there's nothing wrong with that. They're actually better than a super fancy club that has a bottle of mine getting dusty on the shelf because nobody drinks it because the occasion is wrong.

I love what you said, Chris. This is something that's so close to my heart. And I remember having seen it somewhere. There's a statistic that says that Dom Perignon, this very expensive champagne, that it sells most from shelves of Walmart. One wouldn't expect that an economy super chain like Walmart would sell the maximum number of bottles of this brand, but it does, which goes back to exactly what you said.

You can still be the most expensive champagne and still be perceived to be the best champagne in the world, but that doesn't mean that you sit in that one shop in that corner and collect dust, which is the most premium bar in the world and the only bar that exists in the world. You can still be in the Walmart without any risk to your equity and bring in the sales because after all, that's what we want.

Absolutely. And the, let's say the important element on that is that you need to keep top parts of those outlets that the first buyers, historical buyers, while you grow distribution. So there's nothing wrong in selling zillions in Walmart as long as you are still relevant and you are not alienating your first buyers. I always say I focus on the most crucial 1,000 cases of products in a CV because the first 1,000 cases that you will sell, you need to repeatedly sell those 1,000 cases, even when you're selling a million cases. If you forget about those first 1,000, that's where brand decline.

Very nice. Because that 1,000 is creating the aspirational value for the balanced 100,000 to sell. Exactly. To make sure that 1,000 is fiercely protected and that And keeps going to the right

that is the crucial thing. So to the previous point, for example, at Dock and Patty, it doesn't matter that maybe people drink it with orange juice or with whatever they want to drink it. As long as you communicate the Negroni in all the top bars, you're only talking about Negroni and the perception will be that everybody only drinks Negroni. But it doesn't mean that you cannot drink it with orange or with an orange slice or with tonic or with water or everybody can drink it however they want. But you have to be single mindedly specific on, okay, this is what I communicate.

And the Dom Perignon, they will never communicate, oh, we are in Walmart and we're the biggest selling. We are in top bar in Delhi and we are in the top restaurants and then you will have fancy people drinking it. But the occasion will be specific. And that is the crucial thing. Never when you grow the brand, don't alienate your first, they say your first 1,000 fans.

You have

to keep being interested into your brand, no matter what you do ultimately when you grow at scale, because if you grow, of course, it's like an iPhone is not that I don't want anybody else to have an iPhone because I have an iPhone and I bought it and it's expensive. Don't mind if all the world will have an iPhone. I will be happy. As long as it works great, the experience is great. That is the ultimate element of building brands.

Yes. Beautiful insight. Fantastic, Khrit. This is great.

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