HLC Global Innovation Exchange: Proof & Company - Shanghai, China

Story told by: Christopher Lowder of Proof & Co.

Problems:

  1. Bars in some areas can sell to-go cocktails & spirits, but their sales capacity is limited to their own ability to advertise to their consumer base. Most western bars actually aren’t very strong when it comes to animating their core fans and pushing them to specific actions (i.e. buying your delivery cocktail set)

  2. Most bartenders do have some social media following, but their audience is generally limited to other people in the same industry, and this audience is very unlikely to spend money on one-another’s cocktail products for various reasons

  3. Regional KOL (“Key Opinion Leaders” aka “Influencers”) have very strong influence and engagement among their loyal fan base, and are mostly monetizing this fan base via affiliate marketing, merchandise sales, and advertising revenue on social media platforms. They would happily market lifestyle products such as spirits / cocktails to their audience, but they are not Subject Matter Experts in this field, and likely haven’t considered this avenue as a novel revenue stream

Step-by-step Solution:

  1. Bars identify KOLs specific to the region in which they live, but not necessarily specific to their industry segment. An example of this would be a cocktail bar in Chicago finding a Chicago-based KOL specializing in personal fitness, brunch photos, or men’s fashion.

  2. Bar’s head bartender does a collab video with the KOL for Youtube, IGTV, TikTok in which they taste a flight of spirits together and/or make a signature to-go cocktail together

  3. That spirits flight is then packaged to-go (i.e. a vertical of three different “must-try” bourbons that retail below USD $30 per bottle). Or cocktail is also packaged to-go

  4. There is some merch in the to-go bag that promotes the KOL’s channel, for example a branded QRC card that if scanned will take the consumer directly to a given landing page or directly to the tasting video on YouTube. The consumer then scans the QRC when they get the cocktail or spirits flight, and can taste the drink along with the bartender and their favorite influencer

  5. The bar and KOL promote the product heavily

  6. A percentage of all sales from the bar for that SKU are then paid out to the influencer as a monthly consulting service fee

  7. As an option, if a given brand is strongly promoted in the video, that brand can help with social media amplification, or can also be charged an advertising fee (where legal). These brand funds can then also be used to pay for SEO and AdWords campaigns to further amplify the social media at no cost to the bar, further boosting revenue for all parties

  8. The bar makes money, the KOL gets further exposure, the KOL gets a new revenue stream, the bar gets advertising, the brand gets exposure and has somewhere productive to spend their marketing budget, the consumer gets to experience new products and taste along with trusted personalities, everyone wins