There’s a new series on HBOMax that I’ve become quite smitten with as of late called Hacks, documenting the struggles of an aging stand-up comedian forced to hire a young, millennial writer who was recently cancelled on social media for making an off-color joke.
The aging comedian (picture Joan Rivers) is increasingly frustrated by her diminishing relevance and her lack of understanding concerning what young people find funny. The young writer is eager to make an impact, but lacks the experience of her older employer and as a result gets herself into difficult situations. Together, however, they make a pretty good team.
Every episode reminds of me of the struggles we’re facing in the booze business right now.
As a 41 year old, I’m young enough to understand where technology is taking the wine and spirits industry. Yet, simultaneously, I’m also too old for social media platforms like TikTok where micro-influencers have become the talk-de-jour.
Like the aging comedian, I’m not all that interested in learning new tricks, especially when those tricks involve hard seltzer, celebrity-endorsed Tequilas, and RTD canned cocktails backed by Gen Z YouTubers. Like the young writer, I’m equally frustrated by some of the antiquated habits we’re still adhering to in our industry, and I feel like we’re not moving forward quickly enough.
It’s interesting to look at where the industry has landed in 2021. We’ve slowly eaten away at anything creative and relegated ourselves to three core marketing buckets:
Rare and allocated products
Points/press-driven products
Celebrity/social media-driven products
If it’s not hard-to-get, or rated 100 points by the Wine Advocate, or the featured product of the day’s most popular influencer, then forget it.
This narrowing of the marketing funnel is exactly why dozens of my friends have recently quit the business. That, and the Amazon-like transformation of their careers from educated professionals into warehouse fulfillment packers.
When the booze world consists of three core marketing buckets, none of which require the advice or opinions of a seasoned drinker, the need for professionals recedes and the demand for hourly manual labor increases.
It’s funny how quickly things swing the other way.
For the last decade we’ve been in the midst of an educational renaissance for alcohol, where informed consumers have been interested in learning more than ever about what they’re drinking.
Now, ten years later, that wave is over and the complete opposite is happening. Everything is about marketing. Quality isn’t even a forethought.
What’s makes this wave different from previous iterations of marketing-driven alcohol (a la Spuds MacKenzie) is the new understanding that every trend is temporal and cycles move faster than ever.
An incredible amount of planning and production goes into creating a new line of alcohol, but with the fickleness of consumer interest in the social media era, it may no longer be worth the investment. By the time you get the product to market, the category is already fully saturated and the next trend is taking off.
For older generations—those who long to find their perfect bottle and stick with it—this phenomenon is absolutely maddening. As soon as they discover their favorite new beverage, that product line is either out of production, no longer available, or it’s moved on to a different iteration.
When I hear customers ask: “Why can’t they just make more?”, I have to laugh somewhat sardonically.
This is by design, guys.
Always short in supply. Always high in demand. Keeping customers in a frenzy. Rinse and repeat.
-David Driscoll