Tuesday, October 28, 2014

An Open Letter to Jack Daniels


To whom it may concern,
Hello there Marketing wizards of Brown-Forman and Jack Daniel's, my name is Dave and I would like you to ship me a bottle of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Fire.

Now I understand that you can't go shipping free product to every guy who writes you a letter (similar to Lacey Chabert's character in Not Another Teen Movie refusing to give every guy that wrote her a letter a blowjob [they got handjobs]) But if you will allow me several paragraphs, I will prove to you that it would be a wise business decision to indeed send me one 750 ml bottle of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Fire henceforth known as JDTF.

Now, I am not a tastemaker or trendsetter in any official capacity, but I have a Klout score in the 50's and a blog with a pretty loyal readership somewhere in the mid three figures. I have not done any advanced demographic profiling but I would imagine they are...

-In their mid 20's
-Raised in white-ish upper middle class homes, now make about $65,000 a year
-Drink heavily 1.5 times per week
-Have done hard drugs between 3 and 18 times *some extreme outliers on this one
-Watch Sunday night HBO shows
-Fucking love Fireball

Now I would like you to focus on that last one.

Because that's what this is all about right? Jack Daniel's has long been the choice middle of the road bourbon for the post grad bros. However, I would postulate that with new products being introduced to the market, that group is shrinking. You will always have the older males, but that group is static. Your brand should be focusing on aggressive growth and blue oceans to occupy.

Tennessee Honey was a brilliant product line extension, it (to borrow a line from political theory) reinvigorated the base, while also exposing a whole new group to whiskey. Tennessee Honey was so sweet and delicious that it required no mixer even for the inexperienced whiskey drinker. Young women were seen pulling straight from the bottle or pouring themselves neat cocktails. It was a smashing success. Tennessee Honey (henceforth referred to as TH) has subsequently been imitated, yet remains the industry standard in the honey whiskey game. My Secret Santa fifth exchange in 2012 (in which my old frat bros and I exchange fifths) was nearly 80% TH, I thought its dominance may never end.

But dynasties rise, and dynasties fall. As Jaeger did before, Tennessee Honey was all but gone in 2013 and this curious Cinnamon whiskey ran rampant in the 18-29 binge drinking party circuit, this Canadian import called Fireball.

It was a near meteoric rise, coming out of nowhere similar to the Four Loko of 2010. But on the eve of 2015, a full 2 years after it fully attached itself to our cultural zeitgeist Fireball seems to have no roof on how high it can climb.

Until now.

Enter challenger. Enter JDTF.

Right now a bottle of Fireball can be procured for $15 from your local drug store (somehow CVS and Rite Aid have the cheapest alcohol in America) this is similar to the price of TH when it first hit stores a few years ago. What is strange though is how much of a bar shot Fireball has become, whereas I never saw TH ordered at a bar, if you find the nearest bro-y dive near you, you will find ~5 dollar Fireball shots. What's crazy, is you will find these same Fireball shots at LAs hottest night clubs for $15 and still, they are guzzled by the gallon. Fireball transcends demographics. Poor people, white people, black people, rich people...doesn't matter, everyone loves to turn the fuck up on Fireball, especially the ladies.

Now I do not know if JDTF poses a formidable threat. I don't know, because I haven't been able to try it. Your parent company has designed a slow and deliberate state by state roll out, because I don't know...they probably went to Wharton to get fancy Marketing MBA's. Meanwhile, let's ask the CEO of Fireball's parent company what has been the secret to their success. (Yes I know a guy who emailed the Fireball God once)

"For what it's worth, lots of bartenders and fans are responsible for Fireball's success, not me."

See what he did there? He put the product in the hands of the people and let it market itself.

Now I have a Marketing degree, I understand test markets, You want to go somewhere legit, but somewhere that's not important enough to embarrass you if you fall on your face. I'm from Indianapolis, it's basically the perfect middle-ish place to test a product. I knew all about the Chestnut Praline Latte years ago...and snus, the chewing tobacco that you don't have to spit? That shit has been in in Indiana since the late 90's.

Now I live in LA, so I understand that you aren't ready to launch in this market, LA could conceivably make or break you, you had your soft open in Oregon and apparently that went well. Now I am telling you, if you send me a bottle I will drink it and offer a very fair review. I will post it on this blog and about 500 people will read my review. Of those 500, I can guarantee you at least 5% will immediately seek out this product regardless of what I say because of the sheer novelty of being one of the first people to taste the Fireball killer. I have no agenda, I care not if you cannibalize all of Fireball's existing market share or if you two can coexist happily forever after.

I suppose xenophobically I would prefer an American company to have a monopoly on the cinnamon whiskey market, but you have a long way to go until you defeat the dragon. Ignite the night is a sick ass tagline yo.

So let's say you guys sink 10 bucks and send me a bottle. I can guarantee you like 25 new customers easy. That would be a customer acquisition cost of like 40 cents per...and according to Shark Tank, that's pretty fucking good.

Honestly, I'm not looking for a hand out here. If JDTF was sold in LA, I would just go buy a bottle. Hell, if I could get it at the Mexican or Nevada border, I might just drive there for the story.

But I can't, and I'm not going to fucking Oregon for a bottle of booze.

In closing, PLEASE, take a chance on me. Convert me into a loyal Tennessee Fire enthusiast. I'll fucking hold blind tastings, wear tank tops to work at Fox Studios, shit I'll even offer some marketing tips if you want to toss me maybe some advisory shares (an emphasis on America is probably your best bet here, maybe a flaming eagle holding the pillars of freedom and liberty in its massive talons, maybe something more subtle like a red, white and blue bottle)

The point is, I just really want to try your product. I really want to give it a great review. And I don't want to wait another fucking second.

Best regards,
SingleDudeinLA

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