JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020
The Voice of Craft Brands
Kevin Carr, founder, Community Beer Co.
‘Beer For The Greater Good’
How Community Beer Co. is taking its brand to the people (everywhere)
PLUS: What does craft brewing and AI have in common? Sea change
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ALL FOR ONE... Why Manifest Distilling’s success goes to the team and its unity
IN EVERY ISSUE: 3 EDITOR’S NOTE What’s your beer story?
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4 INSIGHTS Industry News
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WHAT DOES CRAFT BREWING AND AI HAVE IN COMMON?
SEA CHANGE 5 double-edged sword philosophies your brand should avoid
editor’s note
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What’s your beer story?
If you love a good beer, you have a good beer story. We all do. Come on. You asked for a taste and then your eyes lit up upon first swig. It was smooth. It was tart. It was the perfect pilsner or the most exceptional IPA. The beer became the reason you kept going back to the same seat at the bar. Your friends thought it was that whole “Guys Night Out” things, but no way, it was the beer. It has happened to me more than once. That Timber Creek Liberty Blonde. Grate City German Pilsner. Left Nut Blond. The list goes on, as it should. It is a taste that grabs you and never lets go. Good craft brewers know how to put the right ingredients into the mix. They understand what their customers want and share that bond in an engagement of craft synergy. But it is not all about the beer. What? Wait, who said that? It is not about the beer. Okay, what is it about? Well, since you asked, it is about the story—your story. The way in which you market your brand is critical today. The engagement with your customer goes beyond what glass your slide across the bar or table. The engagement is the story you keep telling them over and over again through the myriad channels you communicate. Facebook. Instagram. Email. Your website. If you are on your game, your customers should be sharing the essence of your brand in every way imaginable. They are posting
and reposting that cool promo you are having in your taproom. They are helping you share your brand with everybody and anybody who love a good craft story (and yes, that means your product in this case, too).
Michael J. Pallerino
If you are on your game, your customers should be sharing the essence of your brand in every way imaginable. They are helping you share your brand with everybody and anybody who love a good craft story Let’s get on it. Let the stories begin. I should have to remind you, but hey, that is what I am here for. So, give me a glass of your best stuff and let’s talk. There is much, much to say.
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The Voice of Craft Brands
‘Beer For The Greater Good’
How Community Beer Co. is taking its brand to the people (everywhere) 3
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By Michael J. Pallerino
Snicker Doodle Ale. Mosaic IPA. Brett’s Get It On. Silly Gose. When it comes to bringing the fun to craft beer, nobody does it better than North Texas’ Community Beer Co., the brewery that Kevin Carr brought to the edge of the Design District in Dallas in 2013. An area that was once known for Miller Lite now features scores of breweries pushing local beer creations. At the forefront is Community Beer Co., which features a state-of-the-art brewery made by Newlands, one of the premier manufacturers of brewery equipment in the world. Its highly demanded selection is complemented by a location that supports local artists, musicians and charities, a combination that Carr and company call “Beer for the Greater Good.” We sat down with Carr to get his take on how Community Beer Co. is helping change the face of craft spirits in the Great State of Texas and beyond.
I also believe you will find many craft breweries doing more with their taprooms, some (like us) adding restaurants to increase traffic (and revenue) to their facility.
What trends are defining the space?
Traditional lagers and ales have made a comeback. Many folks still want those sessional beers you can drink several of while being outside, by the pool, at cookouts or just sitting on the sofa. Also, the “better for you” category (that’s actually what it is called) includes the explosion of hard seltzers that have hit the market. Even these seltzer manufacturers are shocked by the explosive growth
Give us a snapshot of today’s craft brew market.
Since we launched our operation seven years ago, the market has become exponentially competitive. But as with most industries, things are stabilizing. This includes some corrections leading to some breweries getting stronger, while others decline or even go out of business. After years of many experimental beers and obscure styles being offered, consumers are now gravitating to many more traditional styles. IPAs are still the strongest category, but lagers and traditional ales are now being showcased by craft breweries again.
What’s likely to happen next?
I believe we will still see more shakeout of craft breweries, whereby a handful will continue to grow, and others will not. Consumers are starting to pick their favorite brewery brands in the market, and with so much visual noise on the shelf, it has become harder to pay attention to all the new brands.
of this category. As for beer, some breweries are offering low-calorie and/or low-carb options for this category. Community Beer Co. is doing this as well. We recently launched Hop Skinny, a low-calorie, low-carb IPA. It smells and tastes like a regular IPA, but better for your waistline. Lastly, consumers are seeing (and will continue to see) a plethora of new alcoholic options across beer, spirits and wine. Many small-batch, local spirits makers have joined the game. And a
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Community Co. departmentBeer head
large alcohol conglomerate is in its final testing of instant mixed drinks, whereby you would drop a K-cup-like pod into a maker, hit a button, and out comes a margarita, vodka soda, old fashioned, and more.
What is the Community Beer Co. story from a brand perspective?
Day in and day out, everything you do must align with the same “vibe” you want your brand to emit.
When I started Community Beer Co., I not only wanted to build a brand that represents high-quality brews, but also one that promotes community-building, goodness and love. This is precisely why I called the brewery “Community.” Our facility is highly visible and centrally located in Dallas, Texas. It has a large gathering space where we host a wide range of events that bring the community—from all walks of life—together. We also have a 501(c)(3) attached to our brand called “The Greater Good,” which gives back to the community in various ways such as homeless
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assistance, the deaf, disaster relief, support of various other charities, a charitable cycling team, and more. Through our marketing and actions, all of this defines our brand.
Walk us through your branding strategy.
Our branding strategy is three-pronged: No. 1: Making high-quality beer. There are no shortcuts in our brewing process and quality control. And we have validated this by winning many prestigious awards.
No. 2: Connecting with consumers: Use of our facility and market events to bring large numbers of the community together so they can connect with our brand. Showing folks a good time, interacting with our amazing staff and giving brewery tours really shape consumers’ connection to our brand, which translates to increased sales out in the market.
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Community Co. departmentBeer head
No. 3: Marketing: We leverage multiple marketing channels to continue to shape our identify and promote our brand. Our marketing team does an amazing job of creating fun, goofy, and engaging content across both social and traditional media channels.
What’s the biggest issue today related to the marketing/sales side of the craft beer business?
Quite simply, it is all the noise out there in our space. In Texas alone, there are around 400 breweries all competing for consumers’ attention. Nationwide, there are nearly 8,000. Therefore, it is challenging to stand out in social media marketing, winning shelf space and maintaining tap handles in a market with so many choices out there to choose from.
What is the secret to creating a branding story that consumers can buy in to?
There are three things: Passion. Marketers have to be passionate about their brand, and have fun marketing it. You cannot do anything well without passion. However, the second piece of the equation is understanding what you want your brand to represent. Understanding if your marketing activities and visual content is actually aligned with what you intend. Does the consumer react differently to your brand than you think? Are you too close to your brand to understand what it really means to the market? And finally, consistency is key. In an ever-changing market, it is easy to want to change your branding to react to the trend of the moment; however, marketers need to be consistent in their message. That repetition is how to solidify what your brand means to the outside world. Day in and day out, everything you do must align with the same “vibe” you want your brand to emit. Too much change— or inconsistency—only confuses the customer, and they will not resonate with your brand.
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What is the one thing that every craft beer brand should be doing in the way of marketing?
Have deep expertise in social media and use it effectively. We all know social media is arguably the best marketing channel we have ever known. It is cheap, quick, engaging and we can get instant (often trackable) feedback of the effectiveness of our marketing. Part of this expertise means knowing how much is too much. There is a fine, delicate line of frequency of your posts so that you do not annoy consumers. And there are many best practices surrounding when to post, how often to post, how to effectively use images, when to use video, use of event pages, promoting posts, and consumer engagement.
What do you see as some of your biggest opportunities moving ahead?
Generally speaking, we have two major opportunities ahead. One is that as we continue to grow, we are strengthening relationships with grocery and restaurant chain managers so that we can continue to win large placements across their networks. This will also lead to expansion to other states. Two, we will be moving into a new facility later this year. Not only will this greatly increase our production capacity, but we will add more product lines for on-premise consumption, add a restaurant, expanded taproom, biergarten, concert stage, more private event space, and more—all of which will help execute the customer experience component of our marketing strategy.
What’s the biggest item on your to-do list right now?
The aforementioned new facility. We are
currently in the design phase of our new 80,000-square-foot facility with construction about to begin. All the moving parts associated with our new facility takes up a considerable amount of my time these days.
How does your taproom space integrate into your branding/marketing strategies? Our taproom is integral to our branding/marketing strategy. Our facility is centrally located in Dallas
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Community Co. departmentBeer head
and offers a large gathering space for the public. We use it for a wide-range of events (or normal taproom “have a beer and chill” hours) so that consumers can really connect with what we are all about. It is critical for our customers to be able to see and feel first-hand what we are all about. Giving folks a reason to visit us is key to our marketing.
Does music and/or other arts play a role in your overall brand strategies?
Absolutely. We are a huge supporter of the arts. We regularly have live music in our taproom. We often invite local artists to display their work for sale, and they keep 100% of the proceeds. We are also about to release a series of cans designed by local artists.
Sitting down with... Kevin Carr, founder, Community Beer Co. What’s the most rewarding part of your job? There are so many rewarding aspects of my job. From seeing our beer available throughout the state, to having people nationwide say they know our brand. But the thing I really enjoy the most is seeing the diverse range of people our brand attracts. At any given time, you will find all walks of life in our taproom: young and old, all ethnicities, single and families, conservative dress and tattoos, and more. It is this that confirms our branding strategy is working. We are called “Community” for a reason.
What was the best advice you ever received? I’ve had lots of great advice in my nearly 25 year entrepreneurial career—either from direct communication or reading. But the one I adhere to the most is that success is temporary. Things can change quickly. And I have seen this many times in my career. So I never get complacent or feel I have “arrived.” I get up every day with the mentality that our successes can shift at any time. My team and I work hard each day with a start-up mindset, never taking for granted any successes we may have found along the way. We are always ready to react to big changes in our market.
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What’s the best thing a customer ever said to you? I am fortunate enough that on many occasions I have been told that Community Beer Co., is their favorite brewery. With so much great beer being made out there, this is high praise. However, the best compliment I have ever received is being stopped at a market event and she said: “Community Beer Co., means more to me than just great beer. Your company represents full inclusion of everyone without judgement.” She continued to say, “Sometimes I just visit your brewery to lift myself up.” Wow. Needless to say, I gave her a big hug.
What is your favorite brand story? There have been many. The best come from folks outside of the markets we sell. Sometimes it is shocking to run into someone thousands of miles from our home market who knows our brand. But this one takes the cake: My wife and I were on our honeymoon in the Virgin Islands a few years ago. To get to our resort, we had to jump on a small, six-passenger boat to take us across the bay. One of the couples sitting across from us saw our logo on my hat, and said, “You know Community Beer Co.?” I said, “Yes, I am the founder.” He nearly fell off the boat. He went on to say how much he loved our brewery and seeks us out every time he visits Texas. He had been to the brewery, knew all our beers, our awards, and even the events we have put on. It was absolutely surreal to make that connection on a small boat in the middle of the Caribbean Sea.
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social media
By Lorenzo Hickey
What does craft brewing and AI have in common? Yup, you guessed it, the surprise is in the experience. The taste of a great brew will evoke an emotional response from your customers and so will the use of AI in creating social media posts for your target customers. The No. 1 goal of creating great brews and great social media (or post) is to evoke an emotional response that will set the experience to memory for a long period of time.
Do you want some of that for your customers?
The amazing new developments using social media AI to run targeted ads, social media posts and consistent content will evoke a brand experience that is nothing like you have ever experienced. Let’s get some background before we continue. After all, you are the expert at what you do—making craft beer, so let’s share our social media expertise. Our goal is to use marketing and systems to grow your business now and forever.
The opportunity to get in early is now
The amount of attention your business is missing out on social media is infinite. Your audience is probably spending three-plus hours a day on the social media platform of their choice. Are you anywhere to be found as they scroll their way through? Are you constantly seen and available on their feed? If you are like most businesses, probably not. It is time for you to realize that there is literally an infinite (seriously, endless) amount of free engagement and attention you could gather for your business on social media. You can easily generate mass
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publicity for your business, grow a raving fan base, and keep them constantly engaged by feeding them content so that you are everywhere in their world. It is an endless goldmine of viral marketing to be tapped into. Your business needs to be pushing out content, content, and more content in order to stay relevant to your target audience. If you do not, you will be losing to the competitor that does. Social media can be exhausting to even think about. Trust us, we understand. It takes a ton of resources and time to post consistently, every single day. In some cases, business owners have an expert working around the clock to keep up with these demands. Relax. Think out of the box for a second. The entire world is adapting to the power of AI. Don’t you want AI to handle this tedious yet important task. Let us introduce you to SocialGagement (or SocialG for short). It is the groundbreaking AI toolset that can act as your go-to creator for content, custom images, and beautiful wordsmithing. Create massive campaigns across multiple social media platforms in seconds. Auto generate amazing, professional images and captions that
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sell. Stay updated with your analytics so you can aim and adjust. Now you can easily be everywhere in your customer’s and client’s worlds. So, you can finally sit back, relax, and let our AI do the heavy-lifting.
What is AI and why does it make a difference?
We want to introduce the Artificial Intelligence Marketing Interface. It is the first Social Media Marketing Artificial Intelligence (AI) that writes your content, builds campaigns and analyzes the results. The simple approach uses AI to help you increase brand recognition, loyalty and engage with a broader audience. With your AI solutions in place, you will spend more of your time building your business and creating new brews, instead of trying to figure out social media strategies on your own.
How social media marketing with AI works?
Just like making great beer, there is a formula to follow to create great AI social media: > First, we will help you fill out a quick questionnaire based on your specific industry and the type of campaign you want to launch. We will help to make sure we know you and your target audience to leverage this step to the max. > Second, based on your answers, the use of Artificial Intelligence solution powered by IBM Watson will create your campaign for your specific target customers and elicit the emotional responses we want to create for your brand. > Third, using best practices and previous live results, the AI will generate the proper amount of posts and best times to share those posts based on your history and the history of thousands of other campaigns. There is a secret when to post on every social media platform. > Fourth the exciting part, all of the suggested social media posts for your brand will be written including content and intriguing images
for each post. All you have to do is review and approve or enter your own images. Even better you can tweak them if you like. Yes, tweak is a technical AI term (LOL). > Finally, once your edits are complete for your posts, you hit the schedule button. Easy-peasy. > All this can be leveraged for other social media platforms! YAY... time savings.
In some cases, business owners have an expert working around the clock to keep up with these demands. Relax. Think out of the box for a second. The entire world is adapting to the power of AI. Using this same formula, you can “rinse and repeat” as many times as you like to create AI campaigns that last for days, weeks or months in a matter of minutes using your cell phone or desktop computer. Coming next month will be our checklist of social media tips about “What Mistakes to Avoid.” This information is designed to help you take your great idea, or already amazing social media and assist you on a basic level to ensure you get the exposure and success, you deserve. Some of the best lessons in life are the ones we prefer to avoid. See you on the other side. For more about the author go to this link and see AI in action on our Facebook page: https://ezcard.com/shapeshift.
Lorenzo Hickey is the founder of SHAPESHIFT World, a highly skilled consulting team with specialties in website, social media, funnel, podcast and overall business vision. For information, contact him at lorenzo@shapeshiftcompany.com.
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Brand Philosophies
By Maggie Graziano
Sea change 5 double-edged sword philosophies your brand should avoid
Most of us spend the majority of our time actively working with a team, or as part of a human work system. Whether we are conscious of it or not, your brand's corporate culture can make or break how your team feels about the brand and their place in it. While most awake and aware leaders say they want a constructive brand culture, many are uncertain of what it takes to shape one. Consequently, they unintentionally lead their people toward the fatal, destructive side of the culture coin. They do this by buying into the following five double-edged sword philosophies that can undermine your mission to craft a constructive brand culture. Here are the five philosophies to avoid:
1. Winning above all else
Winning is an incredibly powerful motivator. It can move mountains and deliver profits. But when the need to win overrides better judgement, fragments and erodes core values, runs over people, and leads them to the brink of exhaustion, it must be called out. New behaviors that promote and inspire must be integrated. The pursuit of results above all else can cost relationships, health and wellness, trust, quality and safety.
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Inside competitive work cultures, members often are expected to operate in a “win/lose” framework, outperform peers and work against—rather than with—their coworkers. What begins as a healthy race often devolves into an unproductive workplace. Gone unchecked, a once healthy desire to “beat the competition” often creates opportunities for unproductive behaviors and perpetuates neural pathways and automatic ways of thinking. This shows up by people fussing over win/lose scenarios. Shift from a “me” to “we” mindset.
2. Commanding and controlling
In competitively-driven organizations, hierarchy reigns. Historically, this has been seen as the right way to lead, and for many decades it has actually worked. This model is flawed. When leaders and team members are expected, and even encouraged, to power up over others,
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people sometimes view themselves as pawns in the micromanagement chess game. They lose motivation and initiative, and they give less of their discretionary time to make the brand better. Commanding and controlling is a vicious cycle, and the only way out is to call it out, inspire a new way to lead, and find a new way to follow.
3. Opposing others
In work cultures where members are expected to be critical, oppose others’ ideas and make “safe” decisions, people tend to suppress their ideas and creativity. Opposition shows up in communication such as, “Yes, but…,” “We already tried that and it failed,” and “I have been here for years and I know it won’t work.” While everyone should be singing from the same hymnal, everyone spends far too much time navigating personalities and conflict rather than collaborating, innovating and solving problems.
4. Pursuing perfection
In some cases, leaders of quality-driven organizations pride themselves on a commitment to excellence. But when you create a culture of perfection, people do not take risks. They do not try new things. And they almost certainly do not put themselves or their reputations at risk to color outside the lines. Perfection, by nature of its definition, leaves very little room for risk-taking and creativity. When curiosity is stifled, mistakes are hidden, learning is mitigated and growth is constrained. In an environment where perfection is celebrated and rewarded, conventionality emerges as a safe bet for staying out of the cross hairs. In a work place that prioritizes perfectionism, members are expected to conform, follow the rules and make a good impression. But resistance to change can block progress, and complacency sets in. While certain roles demand perfection or someone could die, perfection as a culture limits and constrains what is possible for the organization and the people in it.
5. Keeping the peace and getting along
Everyone in business understands the need to cooperate with others in the workplace. But creating a work culture where everyone has to be liked and get along can lead to bad outcomes. In a culture of approval, everyone agrees with everyone else. While it is imperative to keep the peace, this has the potential to rob your brand and its people of experiencing the highest levels of role fulfillment and satisfaction. When people (and the system they operate in) do not actively engage in productive ways of being, they can never really get to real engagement in the workplace. That includes constructive conflict, speaking their truth, giving new ideas, and sharing insights about what is not working.
When people (and the system they operate in) do not actively engage in productive ways of being, they can never really get to real engagement in the workplace. Shaping a constructive culture is about intentionally causing the kind of actions that exemplify your brand promise. This takes a solid intention for that culture to function as a holistic human system, meaning a system of people operating as a living and agile organism. Intentional culture is all about monitoring what you are creating and making necessary shifts along the way to ensure you are accomplishing what you set out to do in the first place.
Magi Graziano is a speaker, author and chief evangelist for KeenAlignment, a global people optimization consultancy firm and Inc. 5000 award recipient. Her book, “The Wealth of Talent,” was written from more than 20 years of real-world, hands-on experience. For more information, visit www.KeenAlignment.com
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