Lagunitas Brewing Company has made a change at CMO.
Brewbound has learned that the Heineken-owned, Petaluma, California-headquartered craft brewery has picked Paige Guzman to lead its marketing efforts going forward.
Guzman’s hire comes after the quiet departure of Kelly Murnaghan, the former vice president of marketing at Vans, who had joined Lagunitas in July 2019. Lagunitas has undergone a management shift this year, with the departure of CEO Maria Stipp and the addition of former Heineken Canada managing director Dennis Peek in the CEO role.
Guzman assumed the CMO role about two months ago, and she brings 20 years of experience in the beverage alcohol space to the role, after holding several marketing and innovation leadership roles with Constellation Brands during a seven-year stint with the company. Guzman last served as VP of marketing.
Before joining Lagunitas, Guzman worked for a little more than two years at Pax Labs, a San Francisco-based vaporizer manufacturer that developed the Juul e-cigarette.
Guzman started her career at Beam, spending nearly six years with the wine and spirits giant, last as a field marketing manager in California.
At Lagunitas, Guzman said she sees the opportunity to combine her beverage alcohol and cannabis knowledge at a brand she said she’s been drinking for a decade.
“I built my career and started in cocktails, Cabernet, cannabis, craft beer — just the phrase of speech, the alliteration is fun,” she told Brewbound. “But joking aside, it’s about the opportunity with the brand Lagunitas. It is not just a craft beer. What [founder] Tony [Magee] laid the foundation for what the team has been building out for 27 years is a marketer’s dream. You have high awareness, high brand health, you have amazing liquids, you have innovation and it’s opportunity abounds for us. So I see tremendous opportunity to continue to grow the IPA category within the U.S. and globally.”
Out of the gate, Guzman will be tasked with ensuring the success of Lagunitas’ Hazy Wonder IPA, which debuted earlier this year and recently launched 12-packs.
“Now, it’s putting some muscle behind that launch — because we launched it sort of in an off-cycle time period — because it’s such an important product for us,” she said. “So really putting the team’s omnimedia marketing strategy behind that. And then looking forward is the launch of IPNA.”
IPNA is Lagunitas’ next non-alcoholic beer launch, following Hoppy Refresher, which the company calls an IPA-inspired offering made with Citra, Equinox, and Centennial hops, and containing zero alcohol, carbs and calories. IPNA checks in at 100 calories.
As far as IPNA, Guzman said Lagunitas brewmaster Jeremy Marshall and his team worked hard to develop a high-quality, non-alcoholic product.
“We didn’t want some watered down mess that doesn’t have a backbone or structure,” Guzman said. “We wanted to work with our hop farmers in Yakima and develop something that tastes like a Lagunitas should but without alcohol.”
IPNA will begin shipping in December in time for “Dry January,” Guzman said.
“We’re trying to capture that moment within the consumer trends but also in general for the start up of the year,” she said.
Guzman will share more on that release and Lagunitas’ strategy in the non-alcoholic beer space during Brewbound’s Frontlines event at 3 p.m. ET today (Thursday, September 17 ).
The opportunity in that space and the runway is long. Year-to-date through September 5, off-premise dollar sales of craft non-alcoholic beer products are up 258.1%, to $5.96 million. Lagunitas has found space in the segment, holding the No. 2 brand family spot, as well as the top-selling brand in Hoppy Refresher.
Still, Lagunitas’ overall strategy remains focused on its flagship product, Lagunitas IPA, the top-selling IPA in off-premise retailers, according to market research firm IRI. Sales of Lagunitas IPA are up 22.2%, to more than $63 million, year-to-date through August 9.
Year-to-date through August 9, sales of Lagunitas products in off-premise retailers tracked by IRI are up 8.1%, to $122.7 million.
Beyond Lagunitas IPA, the company is taking a portfolio approach to craft’s biggest and best-selling style. As such, the company will push Hazy Wonder, DayTime, Little Sumpin Sumpin, Super Cluster and Maximus.
“We want to have an IPA for everyone,” Guzman said. “And within those six, we feel like we have that portfolio to offer something for everyone. But we need to educate them more; we need them to understand.”
As far as cannabis, which has long been linked to the Lagunitas brand, which has also partnered with Cannacraft, Guzman said she sees an opportunity for more expansion.
“What’s powerful about Lagunitas is our brand was built within the beer category, but it translates to quality in the cannabis category,” she said. “And with our partners at Cannacraft, we have tremendous opportunity to continue to expand.”