Why Kocktail Ditched E-Commerce and Went Retail

0:00 · Introduction and overview of Kocktail premium cocktails

Nathan Smith:0:01
Hello everybody, welcome back to the Why Marketing Sucks podcast. Today I'm sitting down with Emil Sticklin, the co founder of Cocktail, who makes premium bottle cocktails served in glassware that's designed that's designed to be kept and reused long after the drink's gone. Emil, how are you doing today?

Emil Stickland:0:17
I'm very well. How are you?

Nathan Smith:0:19
I'm doing fantastic. Well, thank you for taking the time to sit down with me today. I do want to get to know you a little bit more and of course learn a little bit more about cocktail and how you got started, what the product actually is. So let's start there. For someone who's never heard of cocktail, what are you what are they actually buying and who is it for?

Emil Stickland:0:38
Yeah, so it it really started when we were in lockdown. So we're we're based in the UK and during lockdown we had quite quite hard lockdowns. You know, it was like difficult to get out to shops and and grocers and difficult to to do things, certainly weren't able to go to any bars or anything like that. And my business partner and I, or now business partner at at the time is just a friend, We were swapping drink recipes. we kind of we say, you know, you had the take on this, or have you tried this, or you wanna and we were going back and forward and we ended up with loads of bottles of of different stuff, right? So we ended up with like a a cupboard full of of kind of random stuff, all with like a tiny shot out or a f or a few shots out the top of it. And we were like, it's gotta be a better way, right?

And so we bought or I bought a couple of the pre-batch cocktails at the time and they were pretty poor quality. They weren't great. Things have improved. You know, the market's come on this is six years ago, so the market's come on the long way, but at the time it was like you could taste it was really cheap spirit flavorings, sugar, like there wasn't wasn't very much that was was very good, right? There were a couple of like local bars doing things, but you know, the presentation wasn't very nice because they were just working with what what they had, right? But so we were kind of like, there's got to be a better way of doing this. So we we got in touch with a a friend who was the former senior bartender at the Savoy. So very good like Savoy's super important in kind of British cocktail culture, I mean arguably global cocktail culture. they literally wrote the book on on cocktails. And so he said, yeah sure, I'll do the recipes.

And we started initially with a subscription club. So we made eight cocktails every month, eight new cocktails. Some were classics, some were takes on classics, and some were completely new cocktails. so we had four light, four dark, and you could get a mixed box. So, like the idea was if you liked light fruity cocktails, gin-based, vodka-based cocktails, you get light box. If you liked whiskey, rum, kind of darker-based cocktails, you got the dark box. And if you wanted to try a bit of both, You you got the mixed box. some people bought both, right? So it was a fantastic product for the time because everyone was looking more like what we're gonna do. Well people were really interested in learning about cocktails and learning about spirits and but kind of it at the beginning it was like really, really easy to sell drinks online. So we'd had a load of packaging printed. So we we spent maybe a little bit longer thinking about the look and the feel and the box and the kind of what came with it. So you got your bottles of drink and your garnishes and you got we came with a story behind the serve card and you got the recipes so you could recreate the drinks that you liked. And so that there was kind of all of this. And then as it it went flying, it was soaring. And then literally like the perfect storm within within a very short space of time, you know, a couple of months, you had like iOS updates, you had Facebook updates 'cause the co whole Cambridge Analytica thing. Bars opened up and you could go into bars. You had there we had a whole load of stuff here in the UK about cost of living, where it was like you know, inflation and all the rest of like people had less disposable income. They could go out to bars again, they haven't been to bars for ages and and and the algorithms weren't working. And literally like our CAC went from four pound fifty and a lifetime value of like eighty pounds, like overnight, pretty much. to like a CAC of like sixty pounds and just a non existent lifetime value. People were coming on and buying one. So we were like, well,

4:00 · How CAC spikes forced a pivot from DTC to retail

Nathan Smith:4:32
That's awesome.

Emil Stickland:4:33
yeah, it's just it was it was like this is a nightmare, right? And people have been

Nathan Smith:4:39
Yeah.

Emil Stickland:4:39
well, I mean, when when the CAC was four pounds fifty it was, it was great. But like when it when

Nathan Smith:4:44
Yeah.

Emil Stickland:4:45
it got up around the fifty, sixty pound mark, it was like

Nathan Smith:4:47
yeah.

Emil Stickland:4:48
became very, very clear that we weren't gonna be able to to maintain the growth of that business. We had some great customers and we did keep the subscription on for a for a bit longer. But we kind of thought like the reason people at that point were coming on and buying the the products was gifting. Right. So we knew that we knew that we had an audience for gift products, but we were set up for subscription rather than gift. And So we kind thought, okay, well, let's let's pivot much more towards gift. So let's reimagine the product. So the subscription box kind of faded out. We had some gift boxes we launched at that point. And then we started launching 500ml bottles. And we also launched a shelf-ready gift pack. so we pivoted much more towards more traditional retail rather than e-com because it became harder and harder to To do the e-com. I think particularly in the drinks industry going into COVID, a lot of the big drinks players had just ignored e-com because they were selling through bars and through supermarkets, right? So once eco once lockdown came along, everyone wanted to jump on on e-com. And you had this weird kind of period where the consumers had given up buying online because they could go and buy it offline again.

But the big guys were all still investing in online. So it became a very, very expensive place to play. So we were like, okay, well, let's not do that. Let's focus again on on for the first time on kind of retail. And we just focused on building gift focused retail accounts and working really closely with retailers to understand what was working, what wasn't working.

How we could improve the sales in the, you know, like retailers always always say to people, and I listen to lots of kind of podcasts and talks and things with with retailers and buyers, and they say, well, you know, engage with us. And it really is true. Like if you engage with the buyers, they will give you nuggets of information. And they don't always get it right, but they know their audience, right? Like it's why they're

Nathan Smith:7:10
yeah.

Emil Stickland:7:10
buying for them. So if you can give them a little something that other brands, other brands are coming and going.

You should buy this, and you're going, Well, we can do that, but like what do you need and how can we make that sell? Then a lot retails are much much more responsive to that. So we built a few really strong retail relationships off the back of that, very much gifting. And then a couple of years ago, we've we've always wanted to have a kind of sub-10-pound product because our bot our 500 mil bottles are quite expensive. they're they sit around just shy of the 30 pound mark, which is quite quite a lot of money that when you don't necessarily know the brand, you know, it's a challenger brand. So so we were kind of looking at what was hot and what was doing some interesting things in terms of we've always performed well at Christmas, but Christmas sales in particular, and Christmas crackers were having a real a real moment. So we were like, Let's launch a Christmas cracker. And again, we we spoke to the retailers. The retailers gave us advice on where we should pitch the pricing, where we should, you know, what we should do, what we should include in the Christmas cracker. You know, some of the advice was, for example, like don't include a snap in the Christmas cracker. So, like, you know, like when you buy Christmas crackers for Christmas Day, there's a snap. They were like, that makes things way more complicated because you're trying to add alcohol and basically a firework.

So, like, you know, they they had some loads of advice from things they'd done previously. And then in terms of price point and things. So we got you know, it was about eight pounds into retail. And because of the shape of our bottle at the time, our hundred mil bottle, it was quite a unique shape Christmas cracker. We worked with the packaging company to really kind of hone in on that. And then it went really, really well. We had two years of amazing sales for the Christmas cracker, and we were looking at it and we were going.

How how can we take that principle of someone is willing to buy for the right product?

A single serve cocktail that is not about convenience.

At a a for a particular occasion, right? But how do we take that occasion and make it a year round product while still holding true to that kind of it's a it's a more premium product, it's more aimed at kind of gifting or treating. So the reasons people were buying the the Christmas crackers were things like stocking fillers or small gifts, or they were going

7:30 · Designing Christmas crackers and working with retail buyers

Nathan Smith:9:52
Yeah.

Emil Stickland:9:52
around to people's houses and just, you know, I saw these in the shop, I thought you you'd like one or you know, and a few people bought them for Christmas Day, but like not that many. There it was more like people were buying them for themselves to try as a little treat. Well they were buying them as small gifts or, you know, people were it it it wasn't like it it was certainly wasn't about convenience, but it wasn't necessarily trying to replace the traditional Christmas cracker if you like. so we were like well how do we there are occasions where peop people do that. anyway, right? So you if you go around to someone's house, you take a bottle of wine, it's there's still that gift moment that exists outside of Christmas. So like what is it that how do we capture that and make it in in terms of product year round? And that's really what what lent into the glass which is is our kind of you know if we if we have a master stroke that's the one, right? Like

10:50 · Creating stackable reusable glassware with pull-off caps

Nathan Smith:10:56
Absolutely.

Emil Stickland:10:57
So so yeah, I mean this this is the cocktail glass. basically the principle is that that that's a self-contained drink. So you pull the it's like a wrinkled lid, you pull the lid off, you add ice directly into the glass, and that is your your perfect serve. And then you're left with with the glass afterwards that you can use and reuse, and it's a nice piece of glassware rather than you know throwing the can in the recycling. And it and it it feels more like a a gift. It feels more like something that you can take around someone's house. And I think that piece of the the moment that we were really interested in with regards to the consumer was always that, you know, cans in the UK have done amazingly well, right? Like I'm all over the world, I'm sure, but like in the UK Really taken over the the single serve cocktail has become a thing in the last five years where where it never was. And basically, how that seems to have happened is that we had a company called Moth that launched a product maybe like six or seven years ago, even. And it went from everything being sub-two-pounds spirit mixer, largely dominated by gin and tonic. into in in a 200 or 250 ml slimline can down into a short stubby 150 mil can with 125 mil of or 100 to 125 mil of over much stronger so it went from 5% ab to 15% ab cocktail in a in a can that were actual flavored cocktails rather than spirit mixers and the price point went from sub two pounds to Around about the four pound price point. And Moth really were the first mover in that space. And then everyone kind of came up to that price point. So you now have, you know, in the UK, like Buzz Balls sit at that same price point. We have a brand called AU Vodka that sits at a similar price point. There's

Nathan Smith:13:09
Yeah.

Emil Stickland:13:10
loads and loads of different people sit at that price point. So we were thinking about that. We're like, that's your ceiling price point for a cat, so you can't move beyond that. So What's the next evolution, right? At what point does a can not feel appropriate for the occasion at which it's presented? So the the kind of idea that we lent into was like cans are perfect for convenience, right? If you're going to the park with mates, if you're having a barbecue, if you're ha if you're on a train, right? Train drinks are a big thing in the in the UK, if you're getting a train anywhere, like. particularly if it's on a Friday evening, you grab some well

Nathan Smith:13:51
Like an alcohol drink before you get on the train to go home after work?

Emil Stickland:13:54
on on the train. So like

Nathan Smith:13:57
okay.

Emil Stickland:13:58
people get we use trains more like you guys in America use planes maybe. So you would you know a lot of people that work in London, for example, live in the suburbs, so they would get a train back. And so you might pick up some cans to to for the journey.

And it's quite it's quite a thing, right? Like, and so that convenience culture is is very powerful in terms of of premium cans, right? And we can't challenge that with a more expensive product because it's it's part of a kind of it's a it's a bit of a utility, right? And and four pounds is that four to five pounds is that sort of price point. And so we were looking at well when when does a can stop that. you know, stop you taking a can from to the next thing, right? And the the bit that we kind of came up with was you can't take cans round to someone's house for dinner. It just looks weird. It looks cheap, right? So you can take a bottle of wine and a really generous bottle of wine would be like 20 quid, 30 quid if you're talking about like maybe a bottle of champagne, maybe it's a special occasion, right?

And so quid is pounds it's in case you get out of the like so like

Nathan Smith:15:22
American, but I'm not, you know, that American. I do know what you're talking about.

Emil Stickland:15:29
so so the the like 30 pound price point would be a really really generous gift in terms of like a bottle of wine, right? So if you spend thirty thirty pounds on cans, it still looks cheap. You would be better off spending ten or fifteen pounds on a bottle of wine than you would taking thirty pounds worth of. of cocktail cans. So it's it's like the there's still a demand for cocktails, but cans at that occasion are not appropriate. So how do we create a product for that that occasion? Not that just not just that occasion, but like the the things that are around that for when cans are not necessarily appropriate in that moment. You know it's that treat, it's date night, it's you know, going around someone's house. It's having people around for for dinner. It's it's your birthday and you've got mates coming over and you're gonna cook them nice dinner and you go, you know, you go to the fishmonger rather than to the supermarket to buy some nice fish. It's it's when you're making a an occasion out of it, or you've just had a really tough week and you you want something to take your time over and enjoy that isn't convenience led, right?

And so that that was the kind of moment that we were we were trying to capture in in creating the product.

Nathan Smith:16:56
I think you've captured it really well. I mean, I think the glass itself and the product itself is one of the most beautiful cocktail like products I've seen. We have a few here in the States if you want to show it again. but none of them really look the way that you have created this glass. And I know you and I talked about it before, and I want to dig into this a little bit more with you, in terms of like, I'm gonna call it somewhat of an obsession in terms of like making the actual design. And I say that in a good way because I'm the same way. but it literally stacks, correct? So, like when you finish one, you can put the other in, or if you're putting them in the sink, so it's not necessarily taking up too much space, or if you're even putting them in the recycling bin, they stack that way. And I think even going to your point, like obviously the product and the branding is around the special occasion and all of that. But I think there's even a a point in which, like, the younger generation drinking these, like, you know, even like college kids, they stack their beer cans or whatever. Like, you can make a game out of stacking these and see how hot.

Like there's all kinds of stuff you could do with this product. But I one, I just love the packaging. I love the actual physical glass that you have. but I do want to talk to you about how you came about the shape of that glass and how long that took you.

Emil Stickland:18:10
Yeah, a a long time, but not like it took a lot of thinking time, but actually execution time was was fairly small. I mean it was a long

Nathan Smith:18:22
Yeah.

Emil Stickland:18:22
time, but it was good relative to kind of if you were a big company doing it, right? So there were a few things that we we looked at and thought about when we when so we decided we wanted to create a glass, right? And We knew that a bottle wouldn't work and we didn't want to go down the canned route. And so we were like, well, it's got to be a glass. You've got to drink a cocktail out for glass. So how do you create a glass? And there there are a few examples of what we wanted to achieve that already exists in the marketplace. So in the UK, there's a brand called Goo. Goo have been around for maybe like 15 years, maybe even longer. but pre the launch of goo in grocery, the the kind of chilled desserts section in the grocery was variations on on yoghurts. So you might have like a trifle, or you might have a chocolate mousse, or you might have some kind of, but they all came in in four packs of yogurt pots, right? And everything was sort of sub-one-pound. And then goo came along. with they they removed two of them so you only got two in a packet they put it in a box and you had two glass ramekins with a dessert it's a foil sealed lid with a with a very small amount of rich indulgent dessert right and it was like I can't remember what the price point was was then but like three pounds right so it tripled in price And the format was and it totally took the market, and it just revolutionized chilled desserts in in the UK. And people keep the ramekins. And so we knew that we wanted a product where if we're gonna serve it in something worth serving it in, we want people to keep the ramekins or the the glass.

The biggest headache that everyone in the UK has with Goo is that they do not stack. So everyone keeps them, and every time that you open the cupboard, the goo pots fall out. So we were like, it it has to stack. So number one criteria, they have to be stackable glasses. And then the the next thing that was really important to us was that it had to look like a glass. We didn't want to put branding all over it and logos all over it and you know, it had to look like something that almost couldn't be a a a packaging, piece of packaging. It was it was about being a glass first and and foremost that you you then I mean we do have a a very small logo sort of like embossed in the bottom of it, but from the side you can't really you can't really Tell. So I mean some some of the other things that were also really influential to us, there was when I was a a kid, I remember that every single time you went round to someone's house and you got given a a drink, a glass of water or juice, something, it was given to you in a Simpsons branded Nutella glass.

And it was like you keep the everyone kept their Nutella glasses. I mean some some of those kids must have had terrible diabetes because the the number of glasses that people had in there, like people were buying Nutella like off the scale. And so that idea of you wanna you wanna keep it and you wanna reuse it. And so it's got to be reusable as well. And then the other thing, the kind of final piece, which was Maybe not not so much in the reuse, re keep side of things, but you know, there's been so many times where I always feel bad about throwing away glasses, right? We we buy a lot of stuff in jars at home because, you know, we're we're not super keen on plastic packaging, we're not super keen

Nathan Smith:22:40
So

Emil Stickland:22:40
on Even even a lot of the like aluminium cans and things are lined with plastic. So we try where we can to buy things in in glass. And it when it comes to taking out the recycling, it always pains me that I've got so many of these things in there. And even when I get a nice glass jar, I'm like, I'm gonna keep that glass jar.

It sits on the side of the sink for a couple of weeks looking at me, me promising I'm gonna clean the label off it, and it just and I never get round to cleaning the label off it. And eventually I get sick of it and I put it in the recycle, right? And so a part of it for us was that you know the label itself comes off really nicely and you're left with the drink in a glass. And and the reason it's part filled is so that when you do take the lid off, you can just add ice directly into it. that that's moving. Right. So it all comes

Nathan Smith:23:43
That is definitely the easiest label I've ever seen come off. That

23:45 · Overcoming packaging challenges and selecting bottle caps

Emil Stickland:23:47
off nicely in in one. So and that was a that was a big part of it. But the the other kind of genius moment, or Eureka moment rather, was the caps.

So we were looking at the goob goo pop thing and we were we were saying, well, maybe we should do like a foil cap. And so the original idea was was a a thick, high quality foil that wrapped the top of the cap. You can kind of like a you know, San Pellegrino cans have a have a kind of foil top. So we were like, we should do that. And the more we looked into it, what what we didn't realize is that The reason yogurt pots work is that that heat sealing is essentially the the plastic is melted or the foil is melted into the plastic on the top of the yogurt pot. Obviously you can't do that with glass, right? So There are ways in which you can do it, and we we looked into a a lot of different ways in which you could do it. but it was really quite complicated. And and it gets into there's all sorts of things that that cause problems that you don't realize at the time, where it's like in glass manufacture, glass is usually sprayed with something after you you make it called a cold end coating. And so this basically prevents the glass from like scratching in transit. So it's completely safe. It's just you they sort of spray it on to make sure that it doesn't and that prevents a or or does makes it much more critical to foil seal on to to something like that. And so we were coming up against this and we just didn't didn't know how to how to do it. And I was I was I'd been out on a Friday night with some friends. and Saturday morning I was feeling quite hungover. And my wife said to me, you know, we've got we've got a baby shower today.

The last thing I want to do is go to a baby shower, right? I was like,

Nathan Smith:26:04
Yeah.

Emil Stickland:26:05
can you drive? Yes. I'll drive is quite. So I went up at this baby shower and I think to myself, I really don't want to be like, how quickly can we get out of this baby shower? And The guy whose baby shower is, really lovely guy, was sort of just we were just chatting before everyone had arrived. We were a little bit early. And before everyone had arrived, we were just sort of chatting and he was sort of saying, are you up to? And I told him about this concept. He said, It's a really good concept, so I like it, I like it. He said, What you should do is put a beer bottle cap on it. I said, That's never good.

Can't put a beer bottle cap. He says, No, no, do it. And he was sort of saying, Well, you could do like a pint glass with a beer bottle cap on the top, and you could serve it in a pint glass because it and you could do like pints of beer, and you you know, we were just playing around. And I dismissed it. And then over the next couple of days, I thought to myself, but maybe it maybe that's a way to do it. And I was looking at the so the a normal beer bottle cap is called a crown cap.

And so obviously that doesn't work because you then have to have a a giant a giant bottle opener to open the a little dainty can of cocktail. But there are types of bottle cap which are wrinkled, right? So there's a brand here Tuborg, I don't know if it's in the in the States, they do it. Mythos is a a Greek. beer and then there's a there's a a ginger beer non-alcoholic drink australian brand called Bunderberg and they they have a a wrinkled things maybe maybe we could do that and so that that then became our closure so we then sort of were were working around that concept of using a giant bottle cap and then it all just sort of came together to to create the gas.

Nathan Smith:27:58
I love it. So if you would have never went to that baby shower, might not have that kind of cap.

Emil Stickland:28:03
Yeah. I can move that one.

Nathan Smith:28:07
That's actually hilarious. No, I love I love learning about the different stories of how products come about. And it's always so unique, especially to like that individual. So one thank you for sharing that. I do want to actually touch on something that you mentioned earlier in the conversation around the Christmas crackers and basically packaging the product with different things. Now you don't you haven't found anything else to package it with yet, correct? Or have you tested anything else?

Emil Stickland:28:36
With the glass.

Nathan Smith:28:38
Yeah, like with the actual cocktail having something else a part of the packaging. Or like, you know, buying them together.

Emil Stickland:28:46
so so the w at for launch, the we're launching with three flavours. We're launching with a a margarita, an old fashioned and a Negroni. they will be sold as well as a three pack. So they will be sold as a mixed three pack. We do we do a mix three pack already, in a more of a kind of gift pack rather than a grab and go pack. And that's that's quite works quite well, but it's a hundred mil bottles rather than In the class. what we'll probably do is move this glass into Christmas crackers for next year. So we'll redesign the Christmas crackers, we'll redesign all our gift sets to to focus on on this class. And then online, we're looking at doing much more kind of pairing things and creating moments and and kind of events around that. So we'll probably begin to launch a couple of like hamper type products that will be around the an idea of kind of like well how d how do you make it a really special night in or how do you make it a kind of date night and and so you know you might have a couple of Negronis and some olives and some nuts and some like gilders or so things that things that are kind of curated around the idea of ha a moment.

I I've

Nathan Smith:30:12
That's exactly what I was thinking.

Like, especially retail, if you can package them together with some crackers, olives, like whatever it is. and you could just purchase that. Like, let's say somebody's going to, you know, their kids' football practice or something like that. They could pick it up on the way, or you know, they have a whole set of games that day. Now they have a drink, they have a snack. Like there's all kinds of different events you could package it with. And then like the old fashioned, you could have cigars. Like you pretty much package it with almost anything and just create that event that people are gonna have.

And then just market around that, especially different time periods throughout the year. am I just going crazy with like all kinds

Emil Stickland:30:47
Yeah, I mean one of the things I'd really

Nathan Smith:30:50
of ideas there?

Emil Stickland:30:51
one of the things I'd really I know it sounds slightly strange, but I'd really love to sell like almost individual ice cubes. So you go and like in in the US, at least in in some places I've been to in the US, you could often you'll go into like a service station and you'll get like a cup of ice.

So you it'll be like a sealed cup with ice. We don't do that at all over here. Like that's not that's not a thing. You can buy bagged ice, but you have to buy a whole bag of it, right? So

Nathan Smith:31:23
Yeah. I mean that's typically the most common here too, but everything I pretty much comes with ice too here.

Emil Stickland:31:27
But I have the idea of and I have no idea how or if

Nathan Smith:31:32
Yeah.

Emil Stickland:31:32
this would even work, but if you could go into Yeah,

Nathan Smith:31:34
I'm I don't know either. I'm curious.

Emil Stickland:31:37
if you could go into a a grocer's or a or a kind of convenience store, like a premium convenience store, and you could pick up your cocktail and you could go, I need some cubes of ice.

And you could pick up some cubes of of ice and like really high quality ice as well. Like a lot of the bagged ice, there are some really good ones, but like a lot of the stuff you just buy in grocery over here, it's kind of the quality of the ice isn't is not that good. And like when you get very, very high quality like clear ice, it melts more slowly. There are less imperfections in often is often made with like water that is much better quality water.

And so you y you're not you're diluting the product and cocktails should have an element of dilution anyway, but you're not diluting it with something that is of a lower quality. So there there's a kind of idea in there somewhere, but I I don't know if it'll

Nathan Smith:32:37
I mean, you could even try like different shapes that people would want to purchase and like put in their drinks so like it's that much more exciting. obviously like the big sphere of ice cubes, like that's a big thing here in the States that you get, especially if you get like an old fashioned, it always comes with like a big ice cube and it just looks really nice. But yeah, there's all kinds of stuff you could do there, I'm sure.

The other thing I wanted to ask you about is especially going back to kind of like the COVID days when everything was going kind of going off. And you told me there was a moment, probably a few moments, where like you turned on marketing, I think it was ads, for maybe like forty five minutes or something like that, an hour, and then you got a f you bait pretty much got a phone call like, Hey, we got to turn this off because we're gonna sell out too fast. How has that evolved since

33:20 · Managing early operational surges and hand-capping bottles

Emil Stickland:33:22
Yeah, yeah. I mean it it

Nathan Smith:33:24
COVID?

Emil Stickland:33:25
yeah, it was I mean it happened more than once, right? Like it was happening quite

Nathan Smith:33:28
Yeah.

Emil Stickland:33:29
often. So when we first launched we we used a friend's bar, because his bar was closed and it had all the relevant licenses and things too.

To do this, right? So we had a we had a cupboard in the bar that we, you know, would fill with stock. And initially we produced only on a Wednesday, and then eventually we were producing every day. And my business partner, Andrew, was sort of managing because he was in Newcastle, which is where the business is really like based. And then I'm based in Edinburgh, so you couldn't you couldn't really travel Like you weren't allowed to travel in less emergencies and things like that. So he was doing the production or managing the production and I was kind of doing the the e-com and the the ads and and the website and things like that. So he would sort of say, Okay, we're we're ready, turn the marketing on, we can we've we've made a whole load of of stock.

And like I'd turn it on and I'd literally get a call like half an hour, an hour later, being like, turn it off, turn off, we've sold everything. And it was, I mean it was when you look back on it, it was mad because like the volume was we were doing quite big volume, but the things that were happening was things like so we didn't have a machine to cap everything. So everything was being sort of hand-capped at the time, right? And We they were capping so many by hand that we had to start buying people gardening gloves because people were literally getting like blisters across their hands from from tightening these these things the whole time. And you know, eventually what happened was you could go you could go to work, but you couldn't you couldn't then go to bars or anything like that. So you were allowed out to go to to certain jobs and certain, you know, it jobs were exempt and things. So You know, we had a small team of people that came in and you know that and and even that couldn't keep pace. And it was just like you'd turn it on. And I'm talking we weren't even spending a lot of money. I mean, we it would be like you'd spend fifty quid on marketing, we'd sell out of absolutely everything we had. It was just like, you know, it was it was amazing for a while. It's really good.

Nathan Smith:35:49
I'm sure. So how's that evolved to today? Like do you still run ads? How are you getting customers now?

Emil Stickland:35:56
We do we tend to run ads. I mean hopefully we will be running ads across the year, but at the moment we typically focus our ad spend on Christmas just because that's when we see the highest return. we have been a very Christmas focused product up till now, particularly with we do a lot of seasonal variations and also the Christmas crackers. I mean, last year the website did very, very well with Christmas crackers. And that's because we were driving, like that was what was working, right? Like we were driving the sales with the Christmas crackers. And we've never really, even in the early days, found the big complex ads or or big complex funnels rather work particularly well for us. what what worked last year and last Christmas was we had a really simple UGC ad. We had a couple of variations but but it was the same sort of theme. We had a really simple UGC ad. It was really clear what the product was, what the USPs were and what the benefits were and Then we offered a really good deal. So we did a four for three and it's went straight through to the product page and people either bought or they didn't. You know, it was a really easy, very one-dimensional kind of ad strategy. What we're hoping to do moving into this season is is build much more on that. to keep it going and have a kind of year-round thing that is then supplemented by seasonal highs. and and be a bit cleverer about it and and test a lot more and learn a lot more from from the whole process. but yeah, I mean yes we do r run ads, we will be running more ads, but it's just yeah, not all the time because hard to make them work.

Nathan Smith:38:02
Are you still managing the majority of the marketing yourself, or do you have a team or do you have an agency? What does that look like now?

Emil Stickland:38:09
So we we have just begun to build a team. so up until very recently it was myself and my business partner Andrew who who did that. As we scale and as we grow, it just it became very evident that we're we're not able to do that. So we now have a kind of marketing person and an e com small ecom team who help us out with with all of that as well. so yeah, hope hopefully lots more. to come. mean we've we've invested in some some pretty impressive machinery for the glasses. it's it the the volumes can increase significantly based on on our existing machinery. so we're we're kind of as a business we're really in a kind of moment of okay well let's let's feed this part and then Now we need to feed this part and then this part and then this it's like a three legged stool, right? If you if one leg's too long, then the whole thing falls over. So we've kind of we've we've changed the product, we've had really great responses from the from retailers and from the public. And we're only really just beginning that that journey, but we've invested in the machinery, we've invested in the brand. would now have to really get the marketing and the performance marketing working and then, you know, shore up all the other kind of parts of the business as well. But yeah.

Nathan Smith:39:35
I think there's all kinds of creative ads you could run or even just content in general. Like s you know, having somebody stand in a long line and they're sitting there talking, like, I wish we could like go grab a drink and somebody, you know, a woman pulls a cocktail out of like her purse and it's like, actually, like, you know, we could or there's just like little things like sitting outside of like like out in the grass or something and just having a good time. Or like there's all kinds of things you could do that isn't just specific to Christmas, but out of curiosity.

If you don't mind me asking, what is your like is the revenue in yearly revenue, is it like something shocking of like 80% of your revenue comes around Christmas time?

40:15 · Handling seasonal Q4 revenue spikes and retail distribution

Emil Stickland:40:16
Traditionally, yeah, like a huge

Nathan Smith:40:18
Yeah.

Emil Stickland:40:18
but our Christmas starts early is what I would say. So we start to get orders in August for Christmas because we deal with

Nathan Smith:40:26
Really?

Emil Stickland:40:26
like bigger yeah, the bigger retailers make orders much earlier. so we have like bit basically the the pattern kind of goes late August through to kind of October the big retailers are making their their big orders, right? and the distributors and things. And they make top-up orders throughout the year, but like with the seasonal products, a lot of the big retailers will just do one buy-in. So they'll go, okay, we want this volume and that'll take us through to the through the Christmas period. So We've got that initial large retailer and then it moves into kind of small retailers, which kind of begin in October and go through to kind of end of November, really. And then e-com kind of begins in October, but sort of ramps up right up until Christmas, right? Like a week before Christmas is the busiest e-comm time. So it it's kind of Q4 that is the spike.

But it is all related to Christmas. So eighty percent of the revenue happens in that Q four, but it it's is over a slightly longer period than just Christmas, but yeah, it it's all related to that really.

Nathan Smith:41:49
So I know I mean you've discussed it a little bit, but what does it look like I guess into next year, twenty twenty seven? Like what are your plans to kind of change that?

Emil Stickland:42:01
Well, the the hope is that the glass does it. I think we're really lucky in that we will be launching with two amazing retailers in initially. So our strategy is to to launch with kind of existing and kind of gifting and and specialist retailers. So we're we're launching with Majestic and John Lewis in the UK. John Lewis is is a real kind of I it's probably akin to something like Macy's in in the US, but it's very,

Nathan Smith:42:38
Okay, yeah.

Emil Stickland:42:39
it's very it holds a very important place on the British like High Street. It's a very highly thought of they actually it's part of the same group that own a supermarket as well. So they own Waitros, which is a is a grosser they're they're separate. but they're they're owned by the same kind of people or the same group. so we launched with John Lewis and Majestic are I don't really know what the American equivalent would be. They they started very much as a a kind of wine place where you would go and you would buy cases of wine, but is is maybe more now kind of consumer-friendly. So you can go in and buy a bottle and they have branched out into spirits and beers and you know it's much broad it's still wine focused but y it's a much broader y broader people. So that's there are kind of two big launch partners. We have a couple of smaller distributors as well who we're working with. so it will be in kind of specialists and independent stores, convenience stores, premium convenience in in London and garden centers and places like that in in the rest of the UK. And then next year, probably looking at at premium grocery. So some of the the kind of higher end supermarkets and and things like that. We're not we don't do very much on the on the on-trade. We do a little bit, but we're we're very kind of off trade focused, so retail focused.

Nathan Smith:44:20
Makes sense to me. Do you have any plans to do any traditional marketing? Like I don't know what it looks like in the UK, but I'm just gonna say billboards. but it could be even, you know, like smaller kind of billboards throughout the city and stuff like that. Like is there anything like that that you have plans of doing? Just out of curiosity.

Emil Stickland:44:37
I so it's it's quite expensive for for a a small company to do in a meaningful way. I always think like if you're just gonna do one small billboard, you might as well not do it. Right. Like you have to do it as part of a campaign, and it has to be a real kind of drive as part of it. We don't really have the budgets to do that.

Nathan Smith:45:01
Yeah.

Emil Stickland:45:03
That being said, there are a couple of things that we're working on with retailers and some of our partners as well, where where we would do a kind of storefront takeover, like a window takeover. So you'd see it on the front of the window, and then you could go into store and purchase the product. so we are looking at few few things like that, which I have have done previously. I mean events work quite well for us. It's not quite traditional marketing, but like tastings. Again, it's that it's that engagement with the retailer. Like the if if you're in a retailer, the re and the retailer's customer aligns to your customer, you just have to be the one that is front of mind in in that retailer. So anything you can do to kind of improve the likelihood, you know, whether that's tastings, whether that's in store events, whether that's, you know, sort of posting.

Nathan Smith:45:57
I'm sure events are are big too, but even partnering with like wedding companies and stuff like that, because especially you don't necessarily have to have too many people if if they're not mixing the actual cocktails for the you know, they're just handing them out. So there's probably potential there and even other kind of events like that.

46:10 · Navigating trade venues and placing cocktails in hotel minibars

Emil Stickland:46:14
Yeah, we have looked at it. The problem we've found specifically with weddings is the margin expectation. So if you

Nathan Smith:46:22
The vo yeah.

Emil Stickland:46:23
are a wedding venue, you have a captive audience, and you know, if I come in and I say, you know, I can offer you a world-class cocktail, but it's gonna cost you five pounds a serve.

And someone else comes in and goes, well, it might not be quite as good, but you know, it's only a one-off and it's only a pound to serve. That's

Nathan Smith:46:50
Makes sense.

Emil Stickland:46:51
it's it's a hard thing to, you know, because if they want

Nathan Smith:46:54
Yeah.

Emil Stickland:46:54
the same margin percentage, they're looking at charging £25 a cocktail versus £10 a cocktail, and it's like that's that's a hard, a hard thing to overcome. We do

Nathan Smith:47:02
That's true. Might just have to go after some high end weddings.

Emil Stickland:47:07
Yeah, yeah, we do we do have some on trade and we do work with some venues. the where it really works is we have a like bag in box offering and we also do like the bottles to to on trade as well. Where it does really work is if you you have to have a volume that is big enough to make it worth it. where the it's The importance of speed and consistency is more valuable than the overall GP. And that then has to be paired with a with a quality expectation. So, you know, there in the UK, for example, in some local pubs, there are, you know, like taps with cocktails in.

That are fairly low cost, and people are offering them or bars are offering them at like two for ten. It's like if that's the audience, that's probably not something we can compete with just because of our costs of production. And those companies have much, much bigger scale. And then at the other end, you've got like the high-end bars, and they're just making cocktails themselves, right? So they're not in, you know, that's part of their USP. They can't start buying you another cocktail.

But there is that sort of sweet spot in the middle. I mean, where where I think this product will probably live in the in the on trade is a hotel mini bars. So like if you're in a nice hotel, you go into the mini bar so often it's a kind of not great spirit in a mini plastic bottle.

Nathan Smith:48:48
I love that. Yeah.

Emil Stickland:48:49
And you know, it's it might be in the fridge, but there's no ice. You might get a mixer, you might not, yeah. So like it it's not that great. The experience is not that great. But if you can go into that mini bar, a lot of hotels will have ice or have ice machines. you can just take it out of the fridge, open it up, and you can have yourself a really great Negroni or an old-fashioned or a margarita. And I th I think it has a place there, certainly.

Nathan Smith:49:18
I think it definitely does too. I mean, I was just in a hotel recently in Chicago. The only thing that was up there was warm water. And then there was a mini fridge, but it wasn't in there. And then you have to go get the ice in the hallway. And then they have a bar downstairs. And by the time like I had my dogs with me and everything, and it's like, I don't feel like going downstairs to get a drink and then coming back up with it or like taking my time to go down there and leave my dogs up. So if there was just like literally a cocktail in the mini fridge for me to just crack open and sit there and look at the view, I probably would have had two or three.

Emil Stickland:49:48
Yeah, yeah, and that that's the argument that that we're trying to make anyway. I think there's a there's a few places that are are interested in that sort of thing already, which is quite cool.

Nathan Smith:50:00
Awesome. Well, Emil, I wish you the best. it was great having you. I do absolutely love the product. I think it is beautiful. I think your packaging, your branding, everything. And I think your website is fairly new, which I've been looking into and that looks absolutely incredible as well. so before we jump, if anybody wanted to look into you or get in touch with you, how can they find you?

Emil Stickland:50:23
Cocktail with a K, cocktail.co.uk. find us online, link in with us. Andrew and I are both on LinkedIn with Ellie. Active if if pe other people are on LinkedIn and Instagram as well, Cocktail at Cocktail on Instagram. So come find us.

Nathan Smith:50:40
Awesome. Well, Emile, thank you very much, everybody listening. Thank you for joining the Wine Marketing Sucks podcast. And we'll see you next time.

Emil Stickland:50:48
Cheers.