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Reaching the Right Audience

One of the characteristics craft beer drinkers love most about craft beer is what it is not. It is not about one colour, one flavour, one label, and most certainly isn't about one loud, obnoxious (and often demeaning) ad campaign driven by big beer (see Molson, Coors, Budweiser, and Labatt). And yet the story cannot be told in a vacuum. It must come out. The question is, by what storytelling strategies and channels will that message be heard most effectively? Advertising is an obvious place to begin looking at communications alternatives, but it's not necessarily the most effective channel for craft beer, if only because "beer ads" have that big beer stigma attached to them.

"Advertising options have changed parallel with the digital age," explains Chuck Galea, VP Sales and Marketing. "Digital advertising allows for finer targeting and more easily produced metrics, so we want to be in those spaces online that we should be. At the same time, there are still traditional ad buys out there that we can select to tell our story." In the quaint, hyper-health-conscious, and active town of Collingwood, two local glossy magazines adorn trendy shops, cafs, and watering holes.Mountain LivingandEscarpment, targeted at men and women readers respectively, "are super effective for us," Chuck says, "as they not only spread our message but show us as active members of the community."

Side Launch's current campaign reads, "It's not just a side launch, it's a celebration"a message that is consistent with the brewery's landing page as well. "There is a crazy mountain bike community here, and our print ads tie into that, parallel with our landing page message. It's also important to be seen in local publications like that because part of the growth of craft comes from the buy local movement as well," Chuck continues.

At the time of writing, Side Launch was doing radio advertising as well, but not in the traditional sense. "I just signed a 12-week deal to be the 'beer of summer' on the Humble and Fred Show [Sirius XM show], and we're already seeing email traffic from people hearing us on that show. It's usually hard to measure radio, but this at least lets us see something tangible."

Of course, Side Launch came into being at a time when smartphones, social media, and inbound marketing were making both advertising and direct response infinitely easier for brands to tell their story at much lower costs. Small but ambitious young craft breweries do not have limitless ad buy budgets and wouldn't be able to compete with a macro beer ad buy, even if they wanted to. So targeted traditional media placement, mixed with a plethora of messaging options afforded by social media, helps increase reach that would have been unheard of 10 years ago. "But," cautions founder GarnetPratt, "all of those things make sense only if you're physically, visibly out there. It makes no sense for someone to see or hear the Side Launch name, be it in a magazine ad or a shared Facebook post, then not see us in the liquor retailers or on-premises establishments."

All of these considerations make a strong case for the concept of integrated marketing communications. Whatever the channelssocial streams, satellite radio, digital or traditional advertising, or public relations eventsthe story must be frequent, consistent, and on-message.

1. The Side Launch message "It's not just a Side Launch, it's a celebration" appears in a print ad featuring a photograph of a cyclist in full gear preparing for a ridenot a single image of a beer in sight. Is this product advertising or institutional advertising? Explain.