Canned Wine & New Partnership Opportunities

When the Maker Wine team discussed their go-to-market strategy I was interested to hear that, in addition to the DTC market, they are targeting specific locations and use cases for their retailer sales. The following types of locations were mentioned:

• Hotels and Resorts
• Ski Resorts
• Parks

Each of these has a few attributes in common. They are generally places of recreation, often outdoors. Most would have some sort of issue with glass bottles and glasses, with many opportunities for both to be knocked over and broken. People in these places are often active, moving between locations in the same area. The demographics in these areas also trend towards the general Millennial population and active middle-age or elderly groups.

Cans, therefore, make sense as they allow for single serving vessels to be carried around the venue without any fear of breakage. Additionally, the ability to change what type of wine being drunk with each serving allows for tastings while drinking, making for more excitement amongst the group. Finally, the focus on each winemaker matches with the "lifestyle branding" that resort's aim to generate for their customers.

The Resort market is especially attractive due to the "lifestyle branding" element. Many hotel brands are creating "flags" (sub-brands) targeted at Millennials and the active middle-age or older demographic. This group of brands is focused on creating Instagram-able lobbies, restaurants-as-an-experience, and top-notch amenities (pool deck, spa, hot tub deck, ski beach, bars, clubs) that make for ideal personal branding content. If the Maker Wine team aggressively courts these sort of resorts, not only will they have created a large customer, but they will have effectively outsourced their marketing to the resort customers who post their travels and exploits incessantly to Instagram and Twitter. This seems like a brilliant go-to-market strategy, yet was glossed over in their presentation. It will be interesting to watch their progress and see if they do go down that route or if they maintain their focus on the DTC market.