The COVID-19 pandemic quickly changed how and where consumers search for products, including beverage alcohol. The shift in behavior required many suppliers to quickly adapt to a digital-focused marketplace. Now that the dust has slightly settled, brewers and other bev-alc producers are evaluating how to take advantage of the “e-premise.”
Four panelists shared the stage at Brewbound Live last month to discuss how the landscape has changed and tips for managing digital shelves: Sara Welch Goucher, Molson Coors’ director of e-commerce; Steve Koenig, Sierra Nevada’s e-commerce national accounts manager; Beny Ashburn, co-founder and CEO of Crowns and Hops; and Derek Hahm, chief commercial officer of The E-Premise Group.
The e-premise – which includes all e-commerce such as direct-to-consumer shipping, third-party delivery and retailer digital shelves – was a necessity during the pandemic, as the on-premise shutdown and brewers sought new ways to connect with consumers. As a result, many brewers had to create an e-premise strategy at an accelerated rate.
“We saw five years of growth happen in three months within this industry,” Koenig said. “It’s overnight became a truly material part of the business.”
For a long time, bev-alc has “gotten away” with not having a huge presence in the digital space and the category is now “playing catch up to the rest of the CPG world,” Koenig added. As a result, there is a great deal of education that has to be done for both shoppers – letting them know that bev-alc is available online – and internally within companies to “make sure that they’re thinking about e-premise way further up the chain.”
Goucher joined Molson Coors about four years ago as the company was “just getting into the digital shelf.”
“What became incredibly apparent quickly was our data was designed not with a commercial lens in mind, and then more specifically, not with an e-commerce lens in mind,” she said. “So the attributes [of] the way consumers were discovering product, making decisions on why to buy a product or consider a product, that information did not exist in our data systems.”
Molson Coors has now “shifted the paradigm of the conversation” internally around the e-premise and the greater influence the channel has on total sales across all channels. The majority of overall sales now – about 70% – are “digitally influenced,” signally that the “loyalty you can drive” with investment in an e-premise presence is “unparalleled” and “unmatched [in] any other channel,” Goucher said.
“E-premise strategy also strays away from the typical bev-alc strategy of focusing on retailer strategy and where people are buying products,” Koenig said. Suppliers “really don’t care” where consumers buy the product in the end.
“E-premise marketing and shopper marketing is they’ve already chosen a retailer or they’ve chosen a platform like a Drizly or an Instacart,” Koenig said. “It’s really getting the ‘Add to Cart’ button and that’s the goal of winning in the e-premise.”
The e-premise also creates a “equal playing field” for both large and small brewers to capitalize on its influence on the consumer, something that is “not the case in on-premise and off-premise,” Hahm said. Brewers regardless of size have the ability and access to create a digital presence and use the e-premise as a tool for brand awareness.
What does matter is prioritizing the e-premise, which is often not as heavily managed as the on- and off-premise across producers of all sizes, according to Hahm.
“I’ve spoken to so many breweries and suppliers and you know, I asked the simple question of who manages your digital shelf? And I would say 95% of them, they don’t know,” Hahm said. “Having your best foot forward and having a great plan is very important. And it all starts with content.”
Crowns and Hops – the first Black-owned, woman-owned and veteran-owned brewery in Inglewood, California – was founded by Ashburn and Teo Hunter in 2018. The brewery is still planning its first brick-and-mortar space and has turned to digital strategies to help connect with consumers, including recently launching its own e-premise platform to reach consumers and sell beer outside of California.
“All that we can do with our resources being such a small team is create just amazing content that is culturally relevant for consumers that just understand what Crowns and Hops is about,” Ashburn said. “This is who we are, this is our story. Be a part of the Crowns and Hops crew, the Crowns and Hops community.”
The e-premise serves more as a “marketing tactic and approach” for Crowns and Hops than a sales channel, helping the company identify where its consumer base is outside its home state.
“The struggle for us as a small brand is building out that really smart strategy, like Derek [Hahm] said around audience reach,” Ashburn said. “And really identifying your ad-buys and understanding your plan to get to consumers directly, and then curate this online experience for them that you’re not used to doing normally.”
Watch the full conversation in the video above as all four panelists dive further into strategies for digital shelf management, and what the e-premise can provide that other channels cannot.