It
is no longer enough to just present your brand
to your audience. These days a beverage brand must
get personal with its drinkers.
You
have to understand the role your brand plays within
the overall lives of your customers, said Pat McGauley,
senior director, Innovations and High End Brands,
Anheuser-Busch, Inc, during a panel discussion on
Breakthrough Marketing. You also have to be able
to identify the subcultures which exist within your
category and know the difference between your users.
McGauley
sees a movement from passive consumption to customization,
making a beverage appeal to an individual person
or consumer. “Make the brand relationship a
two-way interaction. Get them to participate, don’t
just let them sit and watch. We want to pull our
customers into us,” he said.
Andrew Glaser, brand director, marketing, Heineken USA, added
that consumers are increasingly hard to reach but the technology
accessories—cell phones, PDAs, iPods, etc..—which
are central to their changing lifestyles, are one of the
ways to reach them. He also agreed with Pat, “We must
migrate consumers away from being passive observers of our
brand to willing participants.
“We
must also treat the consumer with more respect—sex
and bathroom humor denigrates the category and doesn’t
give the consumer credit. In fact, it pushes them
faster into the arms of the mixed drink crowd,” Glaser
said
