Why your brand isn't in the group chat.
The Lock-In
People aren't shopping for a gin. They're shopping for Saturday.
The group chat pings. Reminder: it's your best mate's housewarming, Saturday, 7pm. And just like that, the question of what to bring to drink is already being decided. Days before anyone goes near a shop.
You see, people don't just choose a drink. Much more often than drinks marketing would like to admit, they choose the occasion first, then pick whatever fits it best. A housewarming wants something that says you made an effort. A barbecue wants something cold that nobody has to think about.
It was the thread that kept coming back at The Lock-In 2.0.
Keegan Giannoni, director of brand marketing at Infinium Spirits, put it plainly: "They're not going out saying, I know I'm going to have a whiskey. They're going out saying, I know I'm going to be having this occasion. What type of drink fits this occasion?"
Here's why that should worry anyone running a drinks brand.
An occasion isn't a moment. The Friday glass of wine on the sofa is an impulse. The housewarming is in the diary. So the choice gets made early, out loud, with other people in mind, and usually with a bit more money on the table. Half of British drinkers say they'd pay more for a better drink when there's something to celebrate.
So the question isn't whether your drink is good. It's whether anyone thinks of it when the invite lands.
Plenty of brands would fail that test. The liquid is fine. The problem is that everything they say is about the liquid. Nobody in the group chat is asking about the age statement. They're asking what'll go down well at the housewarming.
Source: Kocktail
Emil Stickland, co-founder of Kocktail, described that judgement at the Lock-In, talking about going round to someone's house: "If you spend £30 on a bottle of wine, it's really generous… If you take 10 cans, it looks a bit weird, even if you're spending quite a lot of money." Turn up with three bottles of spirit to make cocktails, he added, and "you look like you might have a bit of a problem."
And if people pick the occasion first, your competition isn't the other gin on the shelf. It's everything else that could turn up at that front door: the good bottle of red, or the cocktail that means the host doesn't have to make one.
Not everyone works this way. Some people drink the one thing, whatever the occasion, and nothing will change that. But even the most loyal drinker thinks harder when it's someone else's house.
The brands that win occasions are the ones people already connect with them: the housewarming, the birthday, the barbecue. So when the chat pings, they're already the answer.
That's what being memorable really means. Not just being known. Being thought of at the exact point someone is deciding.
