Liquor Barons has 68 members in total and prides its success on keeping the ownership of its stores with its retailers, which has enabled each to tailor its offering to its local consumers.
General Manager, Chris O’Brien told drinks bulletin, “Our model is not a one size fits all approach, it ensures that we give the stores all the tools they need to market to their local community and we understand that what works in one suburb doesn’t necessarily work in another.“The tagline “Close to home, far from ordinary” came out of a desire to differentiate Liquor Barons from other liquor outlets in Australia. Research showed that there was an opportunity to give Liquor Barons a personality, in terms of who Liquor Barons is and what it’s about.
“Research also showed that convenience is becoming increasingly important to shoppers, which is where the “Close to home” line comes from and far from ordinary highlights Liquor Baron’s unique product offering from its competitors, with more premium products at competitive prices.”
Liquor Barons has historically reviewed its branding every two years and refreshes its marketing if there is a need to based on its consumers at the time.
“In the last year or so, we’ve become aware that our brand is very strong and relevant to consumers over 40 years old, probably because of our strong influence in the use of traditional media. The group of consumers under 40 however, are probably not receiving our message as well as we would like, so it was really important for us to tweak our branding to give us a platform to become more relevant and become the repertoire of that consumer group.”
The campaign features three unique characters called the ‘Barons’ who will provide a voice and image for the brand across digital media.
“We think the Barons will give us really great cut through in social media, particularly on Facebook and Instagram; we think that we’ll be able to generate some exceptional organic reach with the uniqueness of these characters.”
The campaign will also be seen through promotional activity in stores.
“We want to ensure that there is a consistent message across all of our outlets.
“Alongside this quite innovative consumer marketing piece, we have a real focus on sales and service. We think that most of our staff members have really great product knowledge but where we feel we can add value to our stores is by providing staff with sales training to give them the ability and confidence to upsell; to look at a customer and start to work with them on a lifetime value. If we have a customer walk into one of our stores to buy a six-pack, we don’t want them to just buy a six-pack on that day, we want them to buy a six-pack every week.”
Emerging Artist program
In September, Liquor Brands launched its Emerging Artist program, in which the cooperative works with a local artist to produce bespoke artwork that will feature on its bottle bags.
The first artist was Luke O’Donohoe and the cooperative has now secured its second artist in the program, which will be seen for the first time next January.
“This has been fantastically received in our stores who have activated the program really well, but most importantly it’s been picked up really well in social media and it has given us a talking point with our consumers.”
