Why You Should Focus On Top Restaurants Before Building Brand Awareness (And On A Simple Serve, Easy to Replicate) | Imme Ermgassen | Bottom-Up Cut #023

Imme Ermgassen: 00:00

Know, Botivo is quite it's quite a hand sell initially. Because I think when you're trying to do something really different in the category and you're and and you and and you can't easily put a product in a in a box, that building the brand with the bottle shops, building it with the bartenders, building it with the trade is so so important because they're the ones that are serving it perfectly. They're the ones that are telling the story to the customer about it. And we've always had a massive push pull strategy from the beginning where we know that people are discovering our products in like prestige restaurants or our product in prestige restaurants and then they're going online and buying it. And I kind of bang on about this a lot, but I think one of the things that I did on purpose at the beginning was put our signature service Potivo and Soda, not Potivo Spritz, which we actually changed it from, but Potivo and Soda.

Imme Ermgassen: 00:51

And the reason was is that I knew people were discovering in restaurants and then they were going, god, that's delicious. But if it was a spritz, they had no idea what was in it. And so they didn't know what the botivo was or what the other stuff was. But if it was botivo and soda, then they go, oh my gosh, this is just botivo and like sparkling water. I can recreate this at home.

Imme Ermgassen: 01:08

And they go and they buy it on their phones in the restaurant and you see that a lot in our reviews and then they recreate the experience at

Imme Ermgassen: 01:17

I think like allowing that ability to discover something in the trade, but then replicate that in the home is a really important part of our strategy. I think often with non alcoholic drinks, there's so many ingredients in the drinks that people are drinking or the cocktails or mocktails, whatever you wanna call them in trade. That, yes, it might be delicious in a restaurant, but no one knows what to do with that at home.

Chris Maffeo: 01:39

Yeah. And especially in these, let's say, high end cocktail bars, there is always this this issue because there's a lot of pre batching and all this kind of, like, very sophisticated lactoferment, sui, and rotebat, and all these kind of things. And that's the success of many brands. It's how easy it is to replicate it at home and give a super simple idea to someone when they're having people over. And especially when people don't want to drink alcohol.

Imme Ermgassen: 02:07

It's like simplicity of the serve saying again and again and again is absolutely key. Consumers are all about simplicity. So yeah, that's sort of Bottiva and soda, Ki Bin soda. I think also, one of the reasons why Bottiva and soda is so important to us is because someone said really early on to me, when I said that the signature serve was soda, they said, oh, you must be really proud of your liquid. You're not hiding behind tonic.

Imme Ermgassen: 02:38

And I thought, god, that's really, that's a really smart way of putting it. They were like, the boldest brands are the most confident about the taste of their liquids. Just just match it with bottled water They or don't need the other stuff. And and that for me always really stuck with me. And I wanted to sort of bring that into our stretch.

Chris Maffeo: 02:54

How how, let's say, difficult was the the sell in to these kind of venues when when you try to put the foot in the door and, you know, and and and sell the first bottle.

Imme Ermgassen: 03:05

So like, before I came on, we're doing a couple 100 bottles a month as a side kind of project that Sam was doing, but the liquid was so good in itself. Even when he had just had a website, you know, selling it like the River Cafe had picked up because it was so delicious. So that was the first thing. I had a massive advantage of the liquid. It's just so unique and delicious that the most iconic restaurant in The UK had taken it on.

Imme Ermgassen: 03:30

So when I joined and we did the rebrand, that was already one bit of credibility that we had to go out to the restaurants with. I think the key thing non alcoholic drinks is that normally in drinks, the first stage is awareness. So it's going out and telling people about your brand and product and get people, you know, tasting it. But in non alcoholic drinks, to your point around convincing people, the challenge is actually way before that, which is how do you even get people not just shutting the door in your face because there's a whole credibility issue around the category. And you know, people have been so burnt in the past by products when they were more in their infancy.

Imme Ermgassen: 04:13

And so convincing trade in particular, but also consumers to try something that is new and delicious and different is very, it was a massive, massive challenge. Know, it's very difficult to get people to say yes. So our approach was to really focus on that credibility phase before awareness. And it was all about going out to the tastemakers. So going out to the people who would never lie about something being delicious.

Imme Ermgassen: 04:38

So not influencers are flogging loads of products and you're paying stuff online for them to say nice things and it says hashtag ad. But going out to the Alice Lachelle's who, you know, she never lies about what she thinks and she's such a tastemaker in the category. Grace Dent mentioned that she really loved it. And the Berry Brothers buyer, Rob Whitehead, you know, said it completely transformed his opinion, the paratiques and non alcoholic paratiques. Kevin Armstrong, the Satan's Whisker's owner, Lars Bertievo.

Imme Ermgassen: 05:07

And so once we had these proof points of these people who everyone knew would only say it was delicious if it was delicious, then we took those proof points out more and more, knocked, you know, used it for trade and for tastings but also for consumers on social ads, etcetera, as a proof point that yes, this is actually delicious. And if you have been burned in the past, give this a go. So once you've got the River Cafe, then you can go to the next prestige restaurant and say, oh, the River Cafe stocks us. And then you can go to the third one and say the River Cafe plus Maison Francois stocked me. And then you can say the next one, the Maison Francois River Cafe plus the next one stop to me.

Imme Ermgassen: 05:46

The more, you know, the more prestige places you go to and the more you get them under your belt, the more you can use it to sell it into other prestige places because no one wants to take the risk first. Right? Like, restaurants want to want the evidence to be there, but it's it's great tasting and that is gonna sell before they take on the risk themselves. And, you know, using those prestige restaurants as proof points is really important.

Chris Maffeo: 06:09

Absolutely. So you're saying that you're building a bottom up?

Imme Ermgassen: 06:11

Some might say, rich country price, building bottom up.

Chris Maffeo: 06:15

Just kidding. I think that it's actually like any brand need to create that demand that comes, let's say, let's call it, like, together with before awareness. I'm also a little bit allergic to the word awareness as such because then in the end, if you don't convert it into an actual demand from someone that wants to buy it and wants to stock it and wants to sell it, then it becomes like a it's a nice reach on a on an Instagram page.

Imme Ermgassen: 06:42

And I think just just the next stage is in some ways the most important. So obviously getting into places is really difficult, but then staying in places is even more difficult. And so, you know, then it's about how do we make sure that our rate of sale is high? How do we make sure it feels visible on the menu? How do we make sure that it sounds tasty?

Imme Ermgassen: 07:04

But also get our brand name in because we want people to know that it's our brand. And and that's sort of where the hard work really begins is building those relationships with those restaurants and ensuring that, you know, they're selling in in the right way and talking about it the right way to their customers.

Chris Maffeo: 07:21

I was I was actually gonna say when you mentioned getting from the first to the second to the third is like, how do you ensure that you don't lose the first one when you got the third one? Know, like that you maintain that that net increase of distribution through rotation, which because this is like one of the things that I'm advocating the most, like, on on ensuring that. And what I like listening to you, what I what I like about botimbo is that also you can do. It's easy to to make it a category ingredient brand name. You know, it makes me think of Campari, for example.

Chris Maffeo: 07:54

That whenever you see like menus and brands on the menus, like there's some some outlets that don't want to mention any brand name, but they can't find a name for so they put it. So they put whatever, Kraft Vodka, Campari, and whatever. They don't want to mention the vodka name, but then they cannot find an alternative for Campari and they don't want to say bitter as such, then they just put Campari in it. And then all of sudden, I had this discussion sometimes when I'm selling brands and I go to the boss, go, You have brand names. No, I don't have brand names.

Chris Maffeo: 08:27

And look at this, you've got Campari there. But that's not a brand name. It's very funny when you actually manage to create something that it is a brand name, but actually represents the category on its own, and you can actually own that category

Imme Ermgassen: 08:41

I for mean, think to add to that, what we've also realized is that when it's a Prestige accounts, when it's like the mountains, the Bratz, the St. John's, etcetera, having a Retivo in soda works really well. We know that's our consumer, leading edge early adopters. But actually then when you go into, and it's quite interesting for when you're building brands, is that when you go to those bigger, more mainstream groups where maybe the people who eat there aren't quite early adopters or sort of leading edge types, actually when you lead with the brand name and not with a flavor, the rate of sale is not as high. So it's quite interesting that you have to almost think about the way that your drink is presented on different menus in order to talk to the consumer of that particular type of place.

Imme Ermgassen: 09:25

So someone who drinks in the mountain loves pajita and soda, but someone who goes to Oaxaca for example, will want a grapefruit Paloma cooler, you know, like, and the brand name becomes slightly less important in that environment.

Chris Maffeo: 09:39

That's a great point that you raised and actually that there you have to blend in with what that kind of customer as a trade customer wants. Yeah. And to that extent, it doesn't really matter because then who's interested? Then they may ask you, okay. What what is it?

Chris Maffeo: 09:52

And then it's how it's Motivo. But then you don't put it and and there's a lot of and this is, for a longer discussion because it's a it's a very interesting topic on the role of brand and, you know, like, how to explain, how to make a cocktail menu that actually drives sales because people actually understand what it is.

Imme Ermgassen: 10:12

Exactly. I I feel like in prestige accounts, having a brand name is so important, in volume account, there's more mainstream volume accounts isn't necessarily of the ideal as it's there as well, but actually what consumers want is to get a real sense of the flavor and what experience they're gonna get. And the more sensory it is, the better it sells.

Chris Maffeo: 10:30

I was discussing this with with Brett Crompton from Session Spirits, and we we were talking about, like, in quarters, for example, even, like, on stading ABV next to a cocktail. No? Because you may I can imagine now, I can envision like an Negroni made with BozziVo, then all of a sudden, like the ABV drops dramatically. And then all of sudden, are competing with other categories that you may automatically you think are lighter, but actually you could get in people that want to have a lower ABV type of cocktail, and then they can have two or three that evening rather than having, I don't know, three glasses of wine that would actually end up being even higher. So it's very interesting how you can play on many different things.

Chris Maffeo: 11:13

Especially, I mean, on the example of Boltivian soda, of course, it's like 0%, which is even more welcoming for everybody entering that restaurant or that kind of occasion. Then you can build on many different layers and bartenders and trade can use it in so many different ways. But I like what you were saying at the beginning, going back to the beginning about this single mindedly talking about the peritivo. I always explain to people, it's not that you don't use it anywhere else. It's just that you want to own a moment in consumer's customer's mind so that they know when to take that bottle off the shelf.

Chris Maffeo: 11:59

It doesn't mean that you cannot use it

Imme Ermgassen: 12:01

Exactly.

Chris Maffeo: 12:01

However you like.

Imme Ermgassen: 12:04

And and when, you know, when they're really bought into a brand and, you know, they're drinking all the time, then you can say to them, oh, here are these different ways you can use it. But that comes later. You don't wanna confuse them until it's crystal clear what your primary moment and occasion is and then you can bring it in later and say, by the way, here's another cool way to use Absolutely. Absolutely.