Posts Tagged ‘business’

Written on September 26, 2022.

So, you have a ground-breaking idea for your beverage. Excellent! Now you have to start building a beverage brand!  But where do you start? You could start with the ingredients or the flavor you want to develop. You could begin with how to package it, but the further you travel down that rabbit hole, you may find yourself circling back to how you are going to market your beverage. Doing the hard work upfront such as understanding your target audience, establishing your brand’s identity, and working with the right professionals along the way will help you immensely in building your beverage brand and the strategy you take into the market.

Finding Your Target Audience 

You can start from many different points in the beverage development process but determining your target audience first can help you discover what makes your brand unique and visually appealing, gradually helping you boil down your beverage profile. Whomever you decide to sell your beverage to will play a key role in what goes into your drink and how it’s promoted. Let’s hypothetically say you want your drink to appeal to a Caribbean audience. To do so, you may want to think of more tropical blends of fruit flavors to use in your beverage. Or, if your target audience is children, you might want to brainstorm popular packaging trends in that age demographic.

“Your selection of flavors should appeal to your intended audience and attract them to trying your product. The same could be said with sweetener choices. Choose the ingredients that reinforce your brand identity and makes a difference to your target consumers.”- Brad Nichols, Director of Business Development – Flavorman

When imagining your target audience, not only do you want to consider current trends, but you’ll also want to think about age demographics, what your audience values, and what they will get out of a product. Picking your target audience can be very intuitive; most people aim to create a drink they would like personally or a beverage that appeals to family and friends. While it can be a great place to start, you want to be especially specific, considering that many brands in the market may already fill that void. How will your beverage or brand stand out in the market? It can be a lot to think about, but the best way to narrow your audience down is to consider what people value and how your product might add to their lives. You also might want to think about what entertains or grabs your audience’s attention. When promoting to younger demographics, you might consider using mascots or cartoons. Or, if you’re selling to blue-collar workers, you might want to show how your product can fit or improve their work schedule. Establishing that target audience will not only help make ingredient decisions, but it will also lead to your overall characteristics or brand attributes. 

Building a Beverage Brand

Brand Attributes  

When marketing your beverage, you’ll also want to consider the characteristics that make your brand unique. Think of it this way, many brands have attributes that set them apart; for example, Amazon emphasizes its fast-shipping delivery or, Digiorno emphasizes its restaurant-quality pizza. Other brands use their intriguing backstories to promote their products, such as Uncle Nearest and others that advertise for convenience, like Kool-Aid. When establishing the identity of your brand, brainstorm the unique features that separate you from your competitors.

“Brand attributes are the pillars that set the foundation for the narrative or the strategic positioning of your brand in the marketplace. That’s critical because being consistent against that foundation or that narrative is really what’s going to set your brand apart in the marketplace and really attract people to it.”Jeff Insco, President/Executive Director – UPBrand

Does your brand have a captivating story behind its creation? Is there something in your beverages that will improve someone’s life? Are there other services that you want to provide under the brand? Our brand attributes help establish our own identity that we use to make our brand unique and stay consistent. One way to help you begin conjuring your brand attributes is to think of your brand as a living being. What descriptors would you attach to them? Brand attributes are the conceptual ideas, characteristics, and stories that paint a mental picture of the brand. Once those brand attributes are established you can work on developing a product that fits your brand and create your visual identity. 

 Building a Beverage Brand

Flavorman’s Brand Attributes:

  • The Total Beverage Package: Unlike others in the beverage formulation space, our services span the entire continuum of the beverage development process. We offer beverage education, certification, flavor formulation, production, regulatory, R&D, sourcing, manufacturing and more— a single source solution.
  • Unmatched Expertise:  We bring decades of experience from the beverage industry. Our seasoned team represents a range in specialties including flavor chemistry, product development, production, distillery operations, beverage quality control, packaging, and other technical beverage areas with access to an extensive roster of industry partners. Throughout the experience with [our brand], clients learn from the best in the business.
  • Your constant collaborator:  Flavorman considers our client’s beverage a journey. The process is designed to ensure clients have a voice and gain important industry knowledge to increase their opportunity for success. We win when clients win.
  • An Elite Experience:  We’ve spent decades perfecting our services, processes and products to give customers a world-class experience and uphold our reputation for excellence in the beverage industry. From the first encounter to their finished product, clients reap the benefits of our immersive, service-oriented business model. We provide solutions!
  • Customized to a Client’s Vision: No client’s experience, goals, or dreams are the same. Flavorman provides solutions and flexibly designed to deliver what a client requires and explores the possibilities for what a client could achieve.

Visual Identity  

One of the first things you think of when you think of a brand you like is the logo. Coca-Cola, Budweiser, Jim Beam and many more brands have memorable visual identities that grab your attention. Once you have established your brand attributes, you can start conceptualizing your brand’s visual identity. While working with a marketing agency, you can begin creating branded collateral and ensure that your brand’s visual aesthetic fits today’s standards. First, you must set the stage of your visual identity, which means deciding on a few key elements such as color, typography, voice/tone, and aesthetic styles that ultimately help you create a visual portfolio that represents your brand. Your brand’s visual identity needs to stay consistent throughout all platforms and mediums. A combination of those visual attributes will give you the tools to create a roadmap for your brand’s visual story. Afterwards you can start thinking about your logos, labels, website, packaging, and advertisements for your product. It’s important to note that your visual identity is more than just one of these visual aspects; they are visual pieces of a larger puzzle that tell the story and characteristics of your brand. 

“We use the brand attributes and assets to inspire our creative team to create a visual vocabulary for the brand. That could be colors, typefaces or fonts, iconography, logo marks; all the things that are going to visually send a cue about your brand.”- Jeff Insco, President/Executive Director – UPBrand

Building a Beverage Brand

Once you’ve done the hard work of identifying your target audience, establishing brand attributes, and creating a visual identity you’re ready to begin strategizing. Your market strategy will cover distribution, advertising, public relations, content creation, and social media. Having a solid market strategy will help you control the narrative of your brand, how it’s regarded, and how it’s discussed. Everything from an intriguing backstory of your product, demographics, brand attributes, and the resulting consistent visual themes, all play a role in establishing the overall identity of your brand and how you communicate that to the market.

“When looking for a marketing agency, be open about the problems you’re trying to solve. Agencies are fundamentally creative problem solvers. Be fully transparent and authentic about what you’re trying to do. It’s how we work best with our clients, and that’s the same throughout the business.” McKenzie Telthorst, VP of Brand Management – UPBrand

When you’re ready to talk about your idea to change what the world is drinking, give us a call at (502) 273-5214 or get started with this web form.

 

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Written on August 10, 2021.

Louisville-based beverage developer welcomes industry veterans to leadership team

Aug 10, 2021 (Louisville, KY) — Flavorman, a leading beverage development company, today announced that Scott Weddle and Peter Eberle have been named Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Strategy Officer (CSO). Effective August 1, the decision comes ahead of the company’s milestone 30th-year anniversary in 2022.

“We are honored to welcome Scott and Peter into their respective roles,” said Flavorman Founder & CEO, David Dafoe. “Flavorman has a 29-year history of successful growth. Following this trajectory, our new COO and CSO will work together to strengthen the company’s existing processes while introducing new procedures and initiatives designed to propel us into the future.”

Formerly Flavorman’s Director of Business Development, Scott Weddle has been with Flavorman since 2010. From production and purchasing to fulfillment and quality, Scott has served in nearly every aspect of the business. As COO, Scott will apply the full spectrum of his beverage development expertise to advancing Flavorman’s operations and contribute a customer-first approach to product innovation, consistency, and quality.

Peter Eberle joins the Flavorman team with an extensive career in successfully leading multimillion-dollar companies through critical growth and development periods. He offers 30 years of specialized experience in the start-up, transformation, and turnaround of businesses in highly competitive markets. As CSO, Peter will employ his diverse skill set in directing Flavorman’s strategic planning initiatives, as well as overseeing key projects in production, logistics, construction, safety, and financing.

“It’s an exciting time for Flavorman,” said Dafoe. “As we approach our 30-year anniversary in 2022, we see this evolutionary period as the perfect moment to celebrate and renew our commitment to our clients and partners in the industry. Under Scott and Peter’s leadership, the Flavorman Team will continue growing in a direction that adds value to our business and fuels our mission to change what the world is drinking.”

For more information, contact our team.

ABOUT FLAVORMAN: 

Founded by David Dafoe in 1992, Flavorman is an industry leading custom beverage development company based out of Louisville, KY. In contrast to “flavor houses” that manufacture ready-made, “stock” formulations, Flavorman helps clients–big and small–bring custom products to market from concept to production planning and quality control. As of 2021, Flavorman has created 70k unique beverage formulations for brands like Crispin Hard Cider, Formula O2, Jones Soda, Chiquita, Joia Spirit Craft Cocktails, Go Fast Energy, and more. Visit flavorman.com.

Have a great idea for a new beverage? Flavorman’s team of experts can help you bring it to life! Get started by filling out this webform or by giving us a call at (502) 273-5214.

 

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Written on February 24, 2021.

“I want to create a beverage. What should my budget be?” We get this question all the time and it can be difficult to answer–and for good reason. Getting your dream beverage on store shelves can be expensive and complicated. There are many variables involved in the process that can dramatically shift the needle on costs. Knowing exactly what you’re getting into before you get started can set you up for success and help you estimate a realistic budget and timeline.
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Written on June 24, 2020.

It’s 2020 and you’ve decided you’re finally ready to follow your lifelong dream of launching a drink brand. Then the unimaginable happens — a pandemic strikes. Moving forward with your idea would be foolish, right?

Well, maybe not.

Before you postpone your dream for yet another day, month, year, consider the time it will take you to get your product to market.
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Written on October 23, 2019.

Photo by Jacek ReszkoWhen I founded Flavorman in 1992, it was with the ambitious vision to change what the world is drinking. From the very beginning, I recognized the need to think globally and I wasn’t naïve enough to think that I could do it alone — I knew that strong, global partnerships would be the key to making this dream a reality. To this day, Flavorman continues to operate under a philosophy that keeps client and vendor relationships at the core of our business.
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Written on August 28, 2019.

TrueToniq predecessor, TrimToniq

Before you read on, check out our introduction to this series, An Insider’s Guide to the Beverage Industry. In the United States, it is estimated that over 30% of the population is obese or overweight. Much of the concern attributed to this issue is directly connected to an unhealthy diet and eating habits. In 2006, Scott Ohlgren recognized a need to curb unhealthy consumption and decided to develop a company, TrueToniq, that could help do just that. “Obesity is currently our largest health issue in the modern world. Overeating — simply eating too much at each meal — is the cause behind much of this problem,” said Ohlgren. True Toniq, and its successor Trim Toniq, were created as an effective beverage solution to help consumers suppress overeating and unhealthy snacking. With the help of Dave Dafoe and other beverage architects at Flavorman, the TrueToniq concept was taken from a bold idea and turned into a promising reality.
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Written on August 21, 2019.

Bringing your dream beverage to life is only one of the hurdles set for those entering the beverage industry. You might have the tastiest drink in the world, but that won’t matter unless you can learn to successfully manage your business expenses.
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Written on May 11, 2018.

Welcome to the new school. Beverage Boot Camp will teach you how to start a drink company and change what the world is drinking!
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