Why We're Here - Marketing 101

I write this blog for a variety of reasons...

When I embarked upon this blogging endeavor nearly a year ago, I reasoned this to be the best way to share my interests with the largest collection of like-minded individuals. I love cocktails, cooking, hospitality; and can wax poetic (as even a casual reader here can attest) about the virtues which so frequently manifest within these fields. More directly, I love sharing the things that I find to be tasty, interesting or useful so that others might enjoy similar experiences to my own.

As I learn something new, so too do you good reader; when I write about something I've enjoyed I'm happy, ecstatic even, if just one visitor here gives it a try or learns something new. Gaz Regan would label this as one aspect of the "Path of the Bartender", a tiny element in a system of sharing knowledge between any & all who might have an interest for the express benefit & advancement of the culinary craft as a whole...

Imagine my excitement when companies who publicize & market the products with which I often work (and write about) began to take notice, and sought to enable me to better provide you, good reader, with something cool or interesting to read, ponder, or try out. Many of these organizations have been extremely generous in working with little old me (& a number of my esteemed colleagues) in my humble efforts to advance the craft of the cocktail in my own way. More importantly, they have always been courteous and intelligent in their efforts - approaching me through respectable channels, providing samples, tangible & informative information.

They have allowed me to experience their product, and through my experience, enabled you to make a (nominally) better-informed decision about expanding yours. In good marketing there exists an understanding of a little concept called Brand Equity - which we'll cover in a moment - but first let me tell you what the aforementioned groups don't do when they interact with yours truly...

The quality organizations of which I'm speaking have never attempted to sell me a cute story, asked me to reprint a (lousy) sales-pitch which masquerades as a press release, disseminate biased or incorrect facts, communicated with all the professionalism (& spelling or grammar) of a 419 scam, or repeatedly spam my little exercise in sharing with any of the above. Furthermore, and very importantly, they have never made assumptions about you my good reader, as at least ten e-mails a week (& a plethora of already-filtered comments) from other companies so frequently do...

If the contents of my 'deleted mail' box are to be believed, then you 'o reader, surely deserve & desire nothing more than a big glass of root-beer or bubble-gum flavored vodka, perhaps with a dash of chemical sour mix or a spritz of Red Bull...? Perhaps you're looking into discovering absinthe, and you're really interested in getting the most chemically-psychoactive product allowable by law! "It's got more Thujone in it than those other guys! How does it taste? Don't worry about that - it'll get you messed-up the fastest!"

If I were you good reader, I'd be mighty offended - these folks clearly think of you (& me) as an impressionable child. Despite the massive amounts of capital their distillery-based patrons doubtlessly spend on them, do they do their homework? Do they take five seconds to run a search (it's in the top left-hand corner people) on a site like this (or many others) to see if words like "vodka", "sour mix", "hallucinate", or "garbage drinks invented by marketers" pop up? If they did, they would evince a modicum of interest in you or I, their potential consumer, and in building a meaningful relationship with us. They would also find that none of the above terms come up (except the vodka thing - I use that as a preservative with passing regularity) in discussion here. They do nothing to advance the culinary aspects of cocktails, in fact, the tone of their sales pitches undermines so much of the work the mixological community has done to advance the cocktailian arts.

As companies which do engage in such tactic doubtlessly employ folk who have assuredly never attended a basic Marketing class (sometimes not even a basic English class, it seems), allow me to briefly explain the concept of Brand Equity to them. Quite simply, this is the value inherent to a brand name (& the product behind it) in & of itself - the tangible goodwill espoused by your customers towards your product. It is engendered by selling the value of the brand in question through a good sales relationship - which requires nothing more than a professional investment of time. Key words there: "goodwill" & "professional"; the first is not engendered by the tactics decried here and the second is clearly not evinced in the same...

For those companies who understand this concept & engage in it, I salute your work. For those of you who plainly don't grasp it - your emails & comments will continue to be deleted, your ever-shifting IP addresses will be blocked and the products which you are paid so handsomely to represent will never get a word of coverage here. By-the-by, "Grey of Grey Goose Vodka", coming to my site to comment-spam me directly from an open Google Doc's page listing all the folks you plan on bothering after me, alongside snarky comments about the potential gains from such an activity? Not so bright...

Well-played folks...

As for me, I will settle back into my previously-mentioned (& greatly-enjoyed) role of sharing my highlights in matters cocktail & culinary as soon as this venom recedes from whence it came. A nice dinner should do the trick, so tune back in later this evening for more about that...

Cheers!