ASK BRY… BY BRY SIMPSON
We were thinking, and well you know what happens when people start doing that, we decided we should have a column where a really smart person can answer your burning questions or concerns. Since most really smart people were too busy, our good friend Bry Simpson said he would take a crack at it (JUST KIDDING BRY…) But seriously, sometimes there are questions that just need to be answered and we are lucky to have people just like our national star Bry who might just have the roadmap.
Our very first question comes from Sylvie Deschênes in Laval Québec:
where owners and staff would be super passionate about our brand. Essentially - they would be amazing 4S brand ambassadors. Most whisky brands who go this route, often start off in Alberta. But if, we instead go for a national distribution agency that has more staff, more connections, and more data, we would likely get listings in bigger provinces such as Ontario and Quebec. Where our challenge arises is fighting for attention with the rest of their portfolio since some HUGE brands usually have big budgets to spend within the agency. Sometimes a national distribution agency might have a very broad spectrum of products and because whisky isn’t their speciality, they don’t have anyone in their staff who truly knows or loves our product. We end up being the small fish in a genuinely big pond. A common but pretty controversial route is for us to work with a smaller agency in one province to build the brand within the whisky community, and industry in Canada. As Barry White would so eloquently say: “Our first, our last, our everything.” Pretty much have them be our Canadian marketing team, brand ambassador, cheerleader and sales manager. Once we’ve developed, the brand is well known and stores are happy to buy 4S regularly then maybe we move to a larger national agency to grow the brand further because now we have a secure client base. By no means am I implying that this makes it easier to go national but we
Hello folks, I’m going to roll up my sleeves and jump right in here! I’m glad you asked that question Sylvie because each company will have a different strategy and in many situations it’s based on how much of a specific expression they have to sell. Smaller brands will start in one province and grow whereas bigger brands will try to sell nationally across Canada. Let’s imagine you and I have started a new Super Smoky Scotch Whisky brand (let’s call it Simpson’s Stinky Scotch Surprise, or 4S for short). Made with the best of gear so it’s top quality stuff that is super peaty and delicious BUT no one Canada has ever heard of us outside of the realm of the Whisky Explorers. Our first action is to find a distributor who is interested in our products. If we choose one who only does business in one province, we get more attention within their portfolio because they only represent a few brands and tend to focus on the well known highly admired independent liquor stores Bry can you explain how companies/ distilleries decide what Canadian markets to offer their products in?
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the whisky explorer magazine
WINTER 2024
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