All Articles Tagged "alcohol sales"
Study Claims Boost In Alcohol Sales Means Americans Are More Confident About The Economy
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People are feeling so good about the economy, they are celebrating by having a little wine with dinner. It seems there has been a boost in liquor sales at restaurants and bars and it’s all due to the economic recovery, speculates to a new study.
Having just come through the deepest U.S. recession since World War II, more Americans are drinking. Beer, wine, and spirits sales in restaurants, bars and other licensed locations increased 4.9 percent in 2011, according to a study by restaurant research firm Technomic. In dollars, this equals $93.7 billion in sales last year. And there are more drinks to go around. Beer imports into the U.S. also increased 6.5 percent this year, writes The Huffington Post.
Even in hard times Americans tend to continue to enjoy alcoholic beverages. But they tend to enjoy them at home. While alcohol sales fell in restaurants and bars, liquor sales at stores and supermarkets increased 1.2 percent, found a report by consumer research firm Mintel. CNNMoney data shows that in 2010, when unemployment grew to be as large as 9.6 percent, alcohol sales jumped 9 percent.
Drinks, anyone?
Atlanta Residents Will Get a Chance to Vote on Sunday Alcohol Sales
(AJC) — Atlanta voters will decide in November whether they want to be able to buy alcohol on Sundays. On Tuesday, the City Council voted 9-2 to put an initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot. Atlanta is the latest and biggest city in the state to give taxpayers the option of choosing if they want to buy alcohol on Sundays. In Gwinnett County, 13 cities plan to hold November votes on the issue. Three of Cobb’s six cities — Kennesaw, Smyrna and Acworth — have also approved alcohol votes for their November elections.
African-American Winemaker Hopes to Create a Buzz
by J. Smith
Guerrilla marketing tactics usually means blanketing a parking lot with flyers underneath car windshield wipers or advertisements greeting you at every street corner, but for Dave Smith and his homemade wine company, it means going where the customers are. On Tuesdays, he’s at Stadium Village Farmers Market, Wednesdays at the Original Farmers Market at City Market, the Columbus Farmers Market every Saturday and on the second Saturday of the month at the Binford Farmers Market, all in Indiana, the Indianapolis Star reports. The marketing strategy has been a gold mine for Smith as he connects with customers and sells out of his fruit-flavored wines.
“I wanted to be able to talk with people,” he told the Indianapolis Star about his decision to take his wines directly to customers instead of setting up a traditional tasting room. “In this type of setting, they’re more relaxed. You get a nice camaraderie.”
From the looks of the profile, Smith’s business model and personable nature are what attract clients to his booths in various parts of the city. His free samples go over so well that he frequently sells out, with non-drinkers often his best customers.
“Although he had sold out of the four cases of wine he had brought to the market, Smith kept pouring samples and taking orders for that tropical-tasting Calypso Breeze, the raspberry-infused white zinfandel he calls Rhazz, and his peach wine, an intensely fruity chardonnay that is his most popular,” the Indiana Star reports.
Smith’s winery is the only black owned winery in Indiana, making his regional monopoly and guerrilla marketing techniques the winemaker to beat.
While His Critics Simmer Snoop’s Having a Blast
(New York Times) — SINCE the 1980s, the actor Billy Dee Williams has appeared intermittently in advertising for Colt 45 malt liquor, often with a beautiful woman on his arm and accompanied by the slogan, “Works every time.” Now, to celebrate the introduction of a new product, Blast by Colt 45, a potent fruit-flavored beverage, the brand has a new pitchman, the rapper Snoop Dogg. In a promotional video on YouTube, Snoop Dogg, a white fur coat over his shoulders and surrounded by models in skimpy dresses, poses for the photographer Estevan Oriol while holding cans of Blast and the original Colt 45. The photos will be used for promotional purposes, like making 7-foot cardboard cutouts featuring the rapper for in-store displays, and for delivery truck decals. Blast initially is focusing on “viral campaigns with Twitter, Facebook and blogs,” said Evan Metropoulos, who with his brother, Daren, runs Colt 45 as an owner of the Pabst Brewing Company, the brand’s parent company. Pabst was bought in 2010 by Metropoulos & Company, an investment firm started by their father, Dean.
Is Snoop Selling Out or Just Cashing In?
(The Loop) — Snoop Dogg’s been curbed by the morality police again. This time, he was stopped for his new endorsement deal with Colt 45, for its new fruit-flavored alcoholic beverage, Blast by Colt 45…In researching, I discovered that, though bloggers are relatively disappointed in Snoop, their bigger concern is Blast by Colt 45′s target audience: underage drinkers in urban, predominantly African-American communities. The drink itself is going after the Four Loko crowd (though it’s uncertain how Colt 45 intends to keep its product from being banned, like its predecessor), and will attempt to reach them by leveraging Snoop’s industry connects to get ads for the beverage in heavy media rotation.
Neighbors Force Closing of Liquor Store
(Chicago Tribune) — From her second-story porch, Marissa Baker had a clear view of the dilapidated liquor store on a corner of Madison Street and Francisco Avenue. In the two years she and her husband have lived in their East Garfield Park row house, the couple witnessed dice games, drug deals and public urination in the littered vacant lots that flank the store at 2901 W. Madison, she said. On Tuesday, Baker and her neighbors joined community organizers to celebrate their successful efforts to shutter the store, which they said attracted prostitution and a constant crowd of loiterers. ”Since it closed, the difference is night and day,” Baker said.
A New Game for Guinness’ African Advertising
(Wall Street Journal) — Guinness is rolling out a soccer-themed game show across Africa, as it looks to lift sales in the continent’s crucial markets. The Guinness Football Challenge, a TV game show that has launched in Kenya and is arriving soon in Ghana and Cameroon, is part of a broader effort to channel the continent’s obsession with soccer into a greater love for the famous stout. The project comes as Diageo PLC, Guinness’s parent company, looks to move away from traditional advertising and use more commissioned content, digital initiatives and live events to plug its alcoholic-beverage brands. Guinness has identified soccer as the key “passion point” for its African target audience of men age 24 to 35.
Left by the wayside is Guinness’s longtime frontman, Michael Power, a James Bond-like character who served as the face of the Guinness brand in Africa for many years. The Michael Power character, devised by Publicis Groupe SA’s Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide, long represented the stout in commercials and battled corrupt officials in his own African action flick. He was retired in 2007. Michael Power “did amazing things for the brand growth in Africa, but it was a traditional marketing model,” said Chris Goddard, head of football for Guinness Africa. “We wanted to move to a model that is more about participation.” Diageo also wanted to continue the Guinness brand message for Africa, which is “reach for greatness.”
Sunday Sales Back on Table?
(AJC) — Once left for dead, the Sunday alcohol sales bill will likely reach a vote of the full Senate on Wednesday. Senate Bill 10, which would allow local communities to vote to allow the sale of alcohol in stores on Sundays, will be voted on by the Senate Rules Committee Tuesday. A favorable outcome would put the bill on the Senate floor on Wednesday. But before supporters can celebrate, passage in the full Senate is not assured. Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta, said he has seen the evidence of alcohol abuse in his district. ”I am deeply ambivalent about it,” Fort said, adding he may not know how he will lean until the vote is called for, if that happens.
Md.’s Wine Shipment Laws Create Smuggling Routes from D.C. and Va.
(Washington Post) — To find that rare California cabernet or New York Riesling, wine aficionados in the Maryland suburbs of Washington are routinely, and in many cases unknowingly, breaking state law to get around rules that restrict residents from having wine shipped to their homes. Lawyers, government consultants, high-tech workers and even members of the General Assembly – all typically law-abiding residents – have developed an indirect route for smuggling their favorite vino. They have wine delivered to offices in the District or to the homes of friends in Virginia – two of the 38 jurisdictions nationwide that allow vineyards to ship wine directly to consumers.
Last Call for Dry Sundays
(Wall Street Journal) — Georgia could soon allow the sale of alcohol on Sundays, ending a once-common ban that for many Americans now seems as quaint as a backyard still. Supermarkets and other opponents have tried for years to change the law in Georgia, one of three states that still prohibits Sunday alcohol sales, a restriction imposed across the U.S. after the repeal of Prohibition. More recently, a coalition of Christian groups, conservative politicians and small liquor store owners have managed to keep Sundays dry.
