Catering To The Core Consumer
A few months I go, I did something incredibly brash—even for me.
Having listened to an early release, I suggested to one of my favorite rock bands that they swap out the first song on their forthcoming album with another song further down the track list. After twenty years away, Dig—one of the great MTV buzz bin artists from the 90’s—was back with a new record, and the group’s founder Scott Hackwith had forwarded me a digital copy.
To be fair, Scott had sent me the tracks in advance knowing that I was a Dig superfan. As a freshman in high school, I absolutely devoured Dig’s first major release, along with their alt-rock summer anthem “Believe,” a video that was on nonstop rotation about every 45 minutes back in 1993.
To this day, when I hear the opening guitar riffs to “Let Me Know,” the album’s opening track, I get goosebumps and am immediately transported back to my bedroom in Modesto. Those heavily-distorted, slightly-shoegazey power chords, followed by the up-and-down scale of high notes, are permanently seared into my childhood nostalgia.
For the opening anthem to Dig’s new album titled (i), the band had decided on a wonderfully sonic melody called “Great Things” that blends power pop with deep, almost growling vocals that meander sarcastically through each verse. There was only one problem from my perspective: of all the songs on the album, it’s the one that didn’t sound like a classic Dig song.
“It’s been 25 years since Dig released a new record,” I texted Scott hesitantly; “The first song should be an instant reminder of everything we remember so fondly.”
“Is there a track that does that for you?” he asked.
“Yes. Yesterday Forever Ago,” I responded.
“Yesterday Forever Ago” is such an incredibly quintessential Dig song that it could easily have been included on the band’s original release over 30 years ago. Scott’s voice sounds exactly like it did back then (the man can still sing!), the back-up vocals from Johnny are haunting and dramatic, and the track builds to a thrilling crescendo in roughly three minutes.
“That song is a BANGER,” I added. “From a marketing perspective, and as someone who you could consider your core audience, I think that song immediately lures you in. It gives Dig fans exactly what they want.”
Scott agreed, made the change, and the rest is history.
Let’s be clear though: I am not someone who thinks he can tell artists how to make music, or rock stars how to be better rock stars. I’m just an enthusiastic consumer who still gets excited about buying things. New wines, new whiskeys, new artwork for my new house, and especially new albums from one of my all-time favorite bands.
You’d be surprised by how many of the folks making the decisions about new wine and spirits products today have absolutely ZERO interest in actually purchasing bottles from either category. Earlier this year, I had a meeting with one of the most knowledgable whiskey experts in America and he said to me, point blank: “I almost never drink whiskey.”
Or maybe that doesn’t surprise you, just like it might not surprise you that a growing number of alcohol industry veterans are stone cold sober—exhausted from years (if not decades) of late nights and hard drinking.
As I touched on in my last post, many of the people controlling your favorite brands are completely disconnected from the consumer experience. Because they’re entirely detached from the joy and jubilation of the product’s end result, they’re often not invested in anything other than the pure economics.
To put that into a rock and roll perspective, they’re oblivious to whether the music is actually good, and that’s fine as long as the album continues to sell.
However, when retailers wonder why their stores are empty, their tastings are poorly attended, and their private labels are overflowing on end caps with sluggish sales, it’s precisely because much of the wine and spirits industry has stopped considering success from the perspective of consumer satisfaction. There’s no longer any joy in creating something that people truly love. It’s all just part of the daily grind, simply another way to make money.
Yet, is there any better way to move bottles than to create something buzz worthy? Is there any more effective strategy than identifying your category’s biggest fans, listening to their desires, and then overdelivering to the greatest extent possible?
While that all seems blatantly obvious to me, here’s what I see happening in the market right now:
Industry veterans are burnt out and tired, which is trickling down to consumers when products and pricing don’t meet expectations.
Struggling to meet sales numbers, large winemakers and distillers are turning to private labels and single barrels, creating bland and boring products that only exacerbate the issue.
Because the executives themselves are not the core consumers of their products, they rely on sales charts and data to guide them towards new innovation (if you can call it that).
As a result, we get pineapple-flavored Bourbon and watermelon RTDs, while the stuff we actually want becomes rarer, more expensive, and harder to find.
Unlike many of my colleagues, I’m still incredibly passionate about drinking, helping deliver great products, and thrilling consumers along the way. As a consumer in my own right, I still spend heavily on wine and spirits annually, and I support my favorite wineries directly even though I have access to industry discounts elsewhere (not to mention plenty of samples). It’s possible that my passion for booze is directly proportionate to the work I’m offered from prospective clients—currently at record levels for Two-Nineteen as we enter our fourth year as a company.
If Dig’s new album had been lackluster or disappointing, I probably wouldn’t have mentioned anything to Scott about the opening track. I would have simply thanked him for the advance copy and left it at that. But Dig’s first record in over two decades is incredible. The band is still able to channel its trademark sound into soaring songs of longing, beauty, chaos, and disillusion. Even at 45 years of age, that’s not lost on me. I’m still able to tap into the teenage version of me that becomes sentimental from a reminiscence of that era and the accompanying memories that stir those emotions.
As the core Dig consumer, I’m thrilled. You can bet I’ll be handing my money right over to Scott and company when the vinyl version of (i) comes out later this year. The wine and spirits industry might want to start thinking about what types of actions could elicit a similar response from its core customers. It’s been a long time since a new bottle of whiskey made me this happy.
-David Driscoll