Whisky v Whiskey

I should disclose as a preamble to this article that I’m a bona fide Scotsman that talks the language, albeit in a manner that can be understood by the majority. I arrived from Scotland in 2001 and reside in the burbs outside of Houston, Texas.

I stumbled upon a website called NEAT edit  this holiday weekend and my first impression was to question the humans in charge and how sober they are on a daily basis.

I mean, let’s face it, if that was a brand idea by a Scotsman or Irishman from the Celtic land itself, they’d hae nae liver, a face the color of beetroot and a wallet with a hidden Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) membership card – one which has never been used. On the record, I write this opinion while completely dry and sober.

However, that said, some of the best creatives were / are drunks and maybe that’s the neatness of the niche we have here.  Aye, it is a pretty Neat website indeed, although as a Scot, I have to write a wee casket of drivel here to express the need to correct the American understanding of the perfect “Dram”.

There’s generally four known personas in relation to the liquid pour;

(i)   The minimalist.

Straight or Neat, room temperature warmth. No cleanup, just the glass and maybe handy – for the impending morning-after hangover.

(ii)  The sculptor. 

Poured with crushed ice. Akin to a new arrival in Alaska who found out that an ice pick is a great hand tool for splintering ice for your wee shot of gold.

(iii) The historian.®

Poured and a tad of natural water is applied, normally via a glass “dropper”. (This is the correct way, when you’re a Malt Whisky Society member).

(iv) The heathen.

They destroy the meaning of whiskey or whisky by applying coke, lemonade, or some other diabolical fizzy soft drink to the glass. These unsavory heathens should be ejected from the establishment and growled at so they are unlikely to ever want to return. (That may include a walk to the alleyway to ensure they get the message).

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS)

I was introduced to the SMWS by Douglas, a man that was Scottish to the core. (The same man that introduced me to Scottish Beekeeping. Aye, hives of bees, extracting pure honey and making beeswax – you learn and appreciate that the best offerings are from nature itself).

He was just approaching retirement age when he took this young man at the time to Leith in Edinburgh to enjoy an evening at the Society. It was members only and to even enter into the property, you needed a member to take you as a guest. To join, you had to be sponsored.

Roll forward 20 years from when I was a member in Leith and now you’ve access to the Society via their online website. They’ll let you pay for an annual membership and ship out the product to you from their location in USA. (However, in Texas, that is limited to being sent to a liquor store in Houston for pickup, due to the alcohol restrictions and laws in the State of Texas).

Why “The Historian®” Pour is #1

The Whisky from the SMWS is straight from the casket. It’s not filtered, so can be up to 130% proof or more. If you dinnae add the drop o’ water, then you’ll most likely leave your larynx at the venue as you stumble to the exit  – after a wee dram or few.

Image + Credit: Neat Edit’s own Bar

“Brand relevance or customer loyalty,” you ask. Good question.

Loyalty marketing as it has been called is being eclipsed by the new era of Movement Marketing. The old way was based on the idea that people will keep buying the same stuff from a company with incentives.

Yet, according to recent consumer research from Kantar Retail, 71% of consumers now claim that loyalty incentive programs don’t make them loyal at all.

Does your customer retention strategy depend on “buying” loyalty with rewards or discounts? Does loyalty cost you a lot? Does it tell people they get something for nothing?

Rather, with the rise of digital interception strategies, people are increasingly buying why a brand is relevant to their lives and their unique needs at the moment they Google you.

Don’t be loyal to the status quo

To succeed in this era of relevance, marketers and companies must be continuously willing to abandon the old. As new technologies shift customer journeys and expectations, they can (and should) also enhance companies’ abilities to engage with customers in the most relevant ways.

Often, the greatest roadblock is a company’s lack of willingness to transform their processes, organizations, and mindsets as needed.

To overcome that barrier, some companies have shifted from a product-focused mindset to a platform approach.

Scott Galloway makes lots of predictions. Some right, some wrong, some kinda right or kinda wrong depending on what side you’re on.

As a marketing professor at NYU Stern, he has a lot of insight into the future of brands.

“The Four” is not a shoutout to a misdirected Golf shot, or a New Boy Band, it’s a Bestselling Book about Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon.

It’s all about “controlling the experience,” he says. Or, more precisely, the retail environment that products live in will have a greater influence on our pre-purchase decisions than traditional advertising.

Galloway is pretty blunt with his prediction: “Retail is supposedly dying? I think we’re going to see a massive reallocation of capital out of traditional advertising into distribution.