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Episode Deep-Dive Analysis Available at maffeodrinks.com
The family had been making wine in the Chablis region for 35 years. Looking at that grape pomace every harvest, Alex Watson saw what everyone else missed: repurposing it making Gin.
In this conversation, Alex (who co-founded Renais with his sister Emma Watson) reveals the counterintuitive path from London's most exclusive cocktail bars to Waitrose shelves and why both require completely different strategies for the same gin.
We dig into:
• Why prestigious bars that love you most often move the least volume
• The unexpected channel that actually builds premium brands
• How wine sommeliers became his secret weapon in Michelin restaurants
• The Instagram strategy that works when you're "naturally private"
• Why he leads with flavor, never sustainability (even though the sustainability story is incredible)
• The specific moment he knew the traditional gin playbook was broken
This isn't about choosing between credibility and volume. It's about something more interesting.
Listen to find out what.
Timestamps:
- 00:00 Introduction: The grape distillation opportunity
- 02:30 Renais origin story: From Chablis winemaking to spirits
- 05:45 Leading with flavor over sustainability in brand messaging
- 08:15 Provenance, terroir, and wine culture in spirits storytelling
- 12:20 B Corp certification and circular economy positioning
- 15:45 Building early credibility account by account in London
- 19:30 The role of bartender advocacy in brand building
- 26:15 Social media approach for naturally private founders
- 28:40 Scaling from independent bars to national restaurant chains
- 32:10 Drink strategy differences: Martinis vs spritzes by venue type
- 35:20 Navigating serve complexity across different bartender skill levels
- 38:25 Hybridization of hospitality venues and menu evolution
- 40:15 Premium positioning strategy: Ultra-premium gin challenges
- 42:50 Market agility and testing new initiatives at consumer events
Interested in Presentations, Workshops, or Advisory? You can get in touch at bottomup@maffeodrinks.com or find out more at maffeodrinks.com
Creators and Guests
What is MAFFEO DRINKS: Bottom-up Insights?
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For founders, directors, distributor MDs, and hospitality leaders navigating the tension between bottom-up reality and top-down expectations.
20+ years building brands across 30+ markets. Each episode features drinks builders: founders, distributors, commercial directors, sharing how the drinks industry actually works. Not the conference version. Honest conversations.
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This is Maffeo Drinks. Hi, Alex. Welcome to Maffeo Drinks.
Alex Watson:Hi, Chris.
Chris Maffeo:It's a pleasure. We've bumped into each other quite a few times in all this digital world of, you know, WhatsApp groups and LinkedIn and Instagram, but we never actually spoken to each other. So it's a great honor to have you.
Alex Watson:Thanks very much for having me. It's my pleasure.
Chris Maffeo:So let's start. I'm familiar with your brand, Renais, but obviously for the listeners, so can you walk me through in a literally couple of minutes of what Renais is and and where it comes from?
Alex Watson:Yeah. My pleasure. So it's quite a long story. I'll do my best to condense it into two minutes. But, really, Renais is, at its core, the product is a grape distilled gin that's inspired very much by the provenance and the terroir of Chablis and Burgundy.
Alex Watson:The story behind that is that my dad's been a winemaker in Chablis for the last kind of thirty five years, and I was born and brought up in France and was very much kind of inspired by the sort of winemaking terroir lens and then went on to make my career at Diageo and then during lockdown had too much time on my hands and decided that what the world needed was another gin. I kind of felt inspired to connect the world of winemaking and spirits and create a terroir driven grape spirit gin. That's what Renais is, a renaissance to be born again and it's this kind of nod to repurposing those grapes from the winemaking for the product.
Chris Maffeo:For me, being Italian, my wife actually comes from the wine region of Czech Republic, so I'm very familiar with this world of wine. It sounds very fascinating for me because as Italians, we love our grappas and not wasting things from wine production is a big thing. And to be honest, when I saw photos and videos about this was very fascinating for me because it's quite distinct from what I see. I'll I'll we'll talk about that.
Alex Watson:Yeah. And and I think to your point, like, for me at least, wine and winemaking is fascinating. I think wine does such a good job at having a product which conveys a sense of place. You can learn about the region, about the geography, about the grape variety, about the even the kind of geology of the area where the wine is produced, and all of that gets wrapped up in the story and the presentation of this product. And I think wine and winemakers do such a good job at it and there's some lessons in there for spirits makers I think.
Chris Maffeo:You mentioned quite a few things to unpack in your two minutes presentation. If I remember correctly, you're also a B Corp. Right?
Alex Watson:Yeah.
Chris Maffeo:Yes. So there is this element of repurposing and the sustainability. Then there's the wine element itself, the wine production, the terroir, and what you mentioned. When you explain your product, is there a way that you explain it in a simple way, or do you take different routes? Do you usually do that?
Alex Watson:Yeah. I mean, there's so many different talking points about the product. I think especially when you're describing it to a customer and you don't have the format that we have here, which is all the time in the world to describe it. You have to really think about like okay one, two, three, because I think often you only you know asking a consumer to remember three things about your product is already enough. So for me I lead first with our biggest USP, which is that we're grape distilled, and then I lead with the inspiration, which is the terroir and the winemaking and the fact that the gin incorporates winemaking botanicals and kind of philosophy.
Alex Watson:And then I follow-up with the sustainability piece, because for me a lot of the heavy lifting for the B Corp and the sustainability angle is done via our distillation process, which is using a by product from the winemaking industry, which is these grape skins and the lees and the pomace. But first and foremost grape spirit is very high quality, very round, very smooth, and I want to talk about the flavours and all of those good things first. You know it's great that it is very sustainable, but I think it's more interesting to consumers, in my experience at least, to go flavour led.
Chris Maffeo:One of the early questions I used to ask, and I haven't asked it for a while on the podcast, is does it start from the liquid or from the brand?
Alex Watson:Yeah, that's a great question. For me it starts from the organic material, so growing up around winemakers and then seeing all of this dedication suffering often in many cases in Northern Burgundy with hail and frost and kind of all of these different diseases that the winemakers have to battle with. Last year in Chablis, think it was north of fifty percent of the grapes were decimated by adverse weather conditions, and the whole region takes so much pride in what they do. There's all of these amazing festivals that you can be a part of and so on, and there's this product which is the grape. And then once the juice has been extracted to make the wine, that's kind of the end of the story, and that didn't seem right to me.
Alex Watson:So for me the inspiration begins or started with that story of the grape, the sense of place, the community, the effort, and the passion that goes into making it and wanting to kind of carry that forward. So for me, that was that's my jump off point for the product.
Chris Maffeo:I've been kind of, like, playing with my bottom up principles about how to capture that. When I say liquid, I actually mean many of the things you said because it's all about the raw materials and the raw ingredients, but then it goes into the taste profile and all these things and all the things you mentioned. And it's also very interesting when I look at your bottle there. One thing that I mentioned in a couple of episodes is this I like to call it the the selling ring road. Right?
Chris Maffeo:When you've got the ring road of a city and different roads leading into whatever London or Rome or where I'm from. And you can say where you're going, but it's also kinda like a moving target because during that conversation, that person you're talking to may actually move or you may go there with an idea, but then actually there's already another jinn playing that kind of role or there's another spirit playing that kind of role. So it's very interesting how you can adjust the targets into what you're saying. And if I'm hearing it correctly, there is this element of the pomace, the winemaking, the terroir. In a restaurant, it could be a different story than in a bar, in a wine led kind of play.
Chris Maffeo:But then at the same time, in a spirits led, it's more of a gin conversation than in a sustainable venue, it would be more about playing the sustainability cards. So it's fascinating how you can triangulate those elements in the same conversation, if I'm not mistaken.
Alex Watson:Absolutely. That's spot on, and that that's kind of the conversation we have that I have with the sales team and with the distributor. Like, we can approach nice French restaurants with sommeliers and talk to them and say you know this is something that might be interesting, could put this in place or alongside you know a nice brandy or a cognac as a digestif to enjoy it at the end of dinner, but equally we can go to somewhere with a big selection of gins and say you know this is something you need on your shelf because grape distilled gins are you know are quite rare, or we can speak well with buyers for kind of bigger you know restaurant or grocery groups who have you know targets to hit around sustainability and that kind of thing and we can sell from that perspective as well. Yeah there's a lot of thought that went into the product and the brand and that allows us to kind of, we have a clear idea of who we are and where we wanna be, but it's kind of flexible as well. We have different angles we can work from.
Chris Maffeo:And what about building the early credibility? This is something that I discuss a lot with brands that are fairly new in the market. So how do you start building that kind of credibility with your brands?
Alex Watson:Account by account, relationship by relationship, slowly and patiently. I don't think there's any substitute for doing it slowly and patiently. I think building advocacy is so important and is you know in many ways a bit of a lost art in terms of wanting to see explosive rapid growth immediately. I think there's no workaround or quick fix to do. It's patient and it's account by account.
Alex Watson:In our case, we're fortunate to have a guy called Jack Jack Sotti, who's who's a well known figure within the drink space, a close friend of mine. Used to work together at Diageo and he's been a huge help at helping to introduce me and the product to some of those really kind of top leading accounts across London where we kind of bedded in as our heartland for the first like eighteen months, which has just been fantastic to see how the product has kind of been adopted by this incredibly talented and kind of diverse cocktail bartender scene that we have in London that we're so lucky to have. And then now the challenge for me, the brand's kind of two and a half years old now, the challenge has been okay, so how do we progress from that kind of safety or heartland of the on premise cocktail bartending world into a broader consumer audience? Now and it's so important because on a supermarket shelf, I can't convey easily any of those talking points that I would love to about what makes the product different and special, to me at least. But if you do a good job at building a relationship with a bartender, then they could influence 300 people that year who come in through the bar and want to try something new.
Alex Watson:Yeah. And that's that's the challenge.
Chris Maffeo:And this is very connected to something we were discussing earlier on about what I call the bottom up trade, this conversation that you can have at least in an independent store, independent off trade store. It's kind of easier, you know, than on a on a supermarket shelf because the way the shopper and the buyer goes in, the pace is lower, and they're looking into something and they may have that conversation. But it's very important. I was discussing with Morris Doyle in a previous episode that, you know, we were talking about the importance of packaging, for example. And, you know, that the packaging and the price, they are the first two things that actually speak for your product when you're not around.
Chris Maffeo:But then also something you mentioned that is very interesting for me is the heartland and the comfort zone. It's also very important to actually win in your home turf and whatever you identify as a home turf because, you know, I think if I understood correctly, it's kinda like a two worlds together, the British heritage and the French heritage that they can actually play together. The way it sounds to me, you can feel in France and in a French restaurant in London at the same time because, you know, there is the Britishness element and then there's the French provenance as well. So it's kinda like a nice hybrid situation to be in. But then it's good that you took a stance of like, okay.
Chris Maffeo:This is London, and this is what we are going to do and win here before we kinda, like, venture elsewhere.
Alex Watson:My background before I went to Diageo was hospitality in London as well, so I kind of feel very fortunate to have grown up and been influenced by a lot of The UK hospitality scene and world. I think despite all of the innovation that's happened in gin, there is still space at the top for gin in that ultra premium space where I still think gin hasn't quite had its moment yet at that segment of the category that I think is just starting to play out now, that I think is really interesting for bartenders in that space and where we've kind of found our heartland certainly in London and across The UK more broadly now as we have started to scale with bigger kind of national customers.
Chris Maffeo:Okay. And what so do you if I understood correctly, you started from the entree. I'm just fascinated to see, like, how you played because it's it's very
Alex Watson:Yeah.
Chris Maffeo:It's very similar in some other brands, but then each one takes a different kind of approach. You know? So did you take a kinda like a purest on trade first, or was it, like, more of a hybrid on trade and independent off trade? Or, how how how did you move the first steps kind of thing?
Alex Watson:Step one was definitely on trade and on premise. Let's get this bottle in the hands of the taste makers and the influencers who are the cocktail bartenders of London, that kind of community that I was talking about earlier. Or simultaneously, it was also independent retailers, so places with great wine lists and connections. But, know, we went into Selfridges, Hedonism, Amethyst, all of those kind of high end retailers that you'll find around London as well. Again, where there's still an opportunity for a bit of storytelling, that people still go there to pick up gifts or be recommended things and where you still have a kind of chance to have your story told.
Alex Watson:And in the background we also had you know an e commerce business which was probably the other third channel that we focused on to begin with. Especially you know when we launched the product, We launched on the front cover of the Financial Times How to Spend It and we ended up as the most read article in 2023 in the Feet How to Spend It. And we had a huge influx of traffic to our website and on our kind of social media handles and all that kind of stuff, and we're also able to build or work on this kind of third channel e commerce where we would put spend into digital advertising and awareness. So we were putting spend and driving revenue through our website as well.
Chris Maffeo:Building on that, on this digital element of that because, I mean, I've seen you're very active on Instagram. I love the videos that you are making. I was reading from them before watching them. I was kinda like hooked on the That's funny. The reason.
Alex Watson:They're very silly.
Chris Maffeo:No. But that's you know, so you take a you take quite a, let's say, face of the brand kind of approach as well. No? Because some founders are more of a kinda, like, background type of stand, let's say. But the way I see your your Instagram, your profile, you have quite a presence of that.
Chris Maffeo:Can you walk me through the let's say your approach on that one?
Alex Watson:I think consumers at the moment, they care about where stuff comes from, how it's made, and who's making it. And I think that brands should have good answers to those questions. In this case, the product is very linked to my family's history in winemaking and me in that sense, and I suppose the decision to make a product like this. And I think as much as someone's first interaction with your brand is probably most likely to be on social media or online, my impression at least is you first hear of a product or see a product online. I think drinks brands are getting much better at making engaging content, but are probably still slightly behind in other truly successful e commerce businesses that are being creating like you almost need to become an entertainer or entertainment.
Alex Watson:You need to give people a reason to come to your page or your platform and then, you know, the sales kind of happened in the background. Increasingly, drinks brands are getting more and more savvy at this, but I think there's still, not that we've cracked it at all, but but but I think there's still a long way to go.
Chris Maffeo:I see it myself with, you know, my own kinda, like, social media presence. I'm not big at all. You know? It's it's more of a kinda, like, digital arm of the of the advisory for me. But if I take it for myself, for example, that I've got, you know, Chris Mafeo and then I've got Mafeo drinks as a as a company advisory, the podcast and everything.
Chris Maffeo:And it very often is difficult to set the limit. It helps to to give that kinda, like, human face and humanize whether it's a company or a or a gin kind of thing.
Alex Watson:Exactly. And I think that that is the answer to that question of, like, who's behind this or who's making this? And that, you know, that I suppose is our answer to that. And I think as well, like, I mean, yeah, to top it, like, you know, I think we both encountered one another digitally before we had a chance to speak or meet in person or whatever. So, you know, probably is your first impression that's out there.
Alex Watson:So you need to put a lot of thought and effort into, you know, how you come across and how you engage people. And I think as well, the other thing I would mention is I didn't have social media before I started the business. I'm quite a shy well I'm quite a private person. I think partly because of how much attention has always been on Emma and her public profile and so on. I think I always was quite happy to just sort of you know slink away in in the background, but I knew when I started the business I would need one.
Alex Watson:So I I only made Instagram when I when I launched the company and only made a profile and so on. And for me, it's really a work tool, and I and I don't really use it for for a great deal of that other stuff.
Chris Maffeo:Wow. Well done on that, because I've seen your profile. It's quite impressive. I may ask you for some advice offline.
Alex Watson:That's very kind.
Chris Maffeo:Let's go back a little on what you were saying before. I jumped on a tangent when we were talking about the trade wise, not an independence. You mentioned that now you are more working on this chain and bigger groups with national coverage. Do you find different elements resonating more? Do you see a step between talking to independent bars and and bottle shops compared to the big guys?
Alex Watson:Yeah. Definitely. It's such a big piece of work to make sure you know, we just did a nationwide listing with Coke Brasserie, which is a great customer for us because they're French French English and still have a fantastic cocktail menu, and they've just done a whole revamp and all sorts of things. But that's an example where we're on cocktail menu there. But if I go in, whereas I know a lot of bars and have good relationships with them and they understand the products well, but if I go to Cote in Bath or Oxford, the odds are that the bartender there may not know how to describe or sell or explain what rennet is.
Alex Watson:They just have a cocktail with it on the menu, and that's where that advocacy piece and getting your your messaging really straightforward and clear, and probably your serve strategy I think really matters in that context as well, where you know in the kind of independent cocktail bar scene we mostly just give the bottle to the bartender and say you come up with whatever you like and trust that it's in good hands. But you want to start thinking about when you're working with bigger, wider customers about how to create something that can be delivered consistently and easily and really works with the flavor profile of your product. So you need to almost think and it's the same for grocery I think as well. You need to start really thinking about how the consumer will make use of the product and enjoy it and almost kind of really hold their hand through that.
Chris Maffeo:I was taking some notes because it's very aligned with the previous episodes discussing on the importance of the drink strategy. And one of the previous guests that we were discussing this was and also in my kinda like previous projects on for some brands. It's always different kind of approaches to drink strategy. No? Because very often, you know, I'm I'm quite vocal on LinkedIn about, you know, stop making drink strategies in advertising agencies kind of thing because they
Alex Watson:have to come from the bar.
Chris Maffeo:You know? Yeah. They have to they have to come from a real life experience sitting at the bar. Yeah. But then at the same time, there's always this kind of tension between the top tier trade where you are you're giving some hints of what the taste is going to be.
Chris Maffeo:You know, you open the bottle, you make them taste it. They start thinking about, k. I can make it in this drink. Okay. This is exactly what I needed in that drink and blah blah blah.
Chris Maffeo:While when you go wider, you know, there is much bigger importance of the drink strategy because it's that type of people that not necessarily, you know, less educated or less skilled. It's just that their kind of priority set may be different. Maybe they're incentivized on different things. They don't have that kind of freedom or creativity and so on. So in one of the previous episode, we were discussing this thing that actually in the middle middle of the pyramid type of places, that's where the drink strategy really kicks in.
Alex Watson:Yeah. I agree. And for us, that shapes out, you know, an independent and and high end cocktail bars. The martini is the coveted spot for the gin, and for me, it's where the liquid shines the strongest. It's my favorite serve.
Alex Watson:It's how I enjoy it. But as we started working with bigger on trade national groups, you need something with three ingredients like tops that is gonna be really accessible, that's just very straightforward and easy to consume and enjoy. Like a spritz for us is where we're seeing a lot of success with that at the moment. Because, yeah, to your point, you know, a bartender, a bigger national on trade group doesn't have the time. They don't have the resources.
Alex Watson:They may not have the training, etcetera. So you need to create something that is really simple, that is delicious, and that's a challenge in itself.
Chris Maffeo:Mhmm. It's one of the things, for example, that I've developed my own type of segmentation where I'm very reluctant to use segments as such. I mean, you come from the adieu as well before, so you may be very familiar with the usual way of segmenting the entree now. But for me, ultimately, what matters apart from the top and bottom of the pyramid is actually the level of skill set and who's making the cocktails and the you mentioned the available ingredients kind of thing now because, I mean, if you've got a you know, the the certain type of venues that I mean, the waiter or the waitress would make the cocktails. You know?
Chris Maffeo:Yeah. You know, they would make the coffee. They would make the cocktails. They would, you know, open the bottle of wine. You know?
Chris Maffeo:Yeah. It while you when you scale up to different kind of those type of venues, it's a totally different game. Very, you know, very you know, since a few years, we are witnessing a kind of, like, hybridization, if that's a word, of of the entree. You you used to have, like, a French bistro, Mexican restaurant, Italian pizzeria, British pub. Pubs are becoming more kind of gastropubs.
Chris Maffeo:Bistros are starting to have cappuccino in the morning, avocado toast, and then gin and sonic and Negronis later on towards the evening. So you cannot really do anymore this kind of segmentations as you used to. So it's very important to actually have something as like, okay. In those venues where there's oranges, lemons, lime, if you're lucky, well, maybe there's no mint. There's no certain type of ingredients or garnishes that you will never find in those kind of venues.
Chris Maffeo:Or if you take, I don't know, a tonic, will they have ginger ale? Maybe not. Maybe they'll have only tonic. Maybe they won't even have soda. They will use sparkling water with it.
Chris Maffeo:So all these things are so fascinating for me when they come into play, and they can tell you the kind of success or failure of a drink strategy just out of very technical elements rather than big strategies.
Alex Watson:Yeah. Definitely. I think to your point as well, like, on the hybridization of hospitality venues, London pubs is such a good example because ten years ago, if you wanted to get a cocktail in a pub, like a good one or a fresh made one, you'd be very hard pressed. But now there's some amazing pubs with great cocktail menus and lists and bartenders doing some really impressive stuff because, you know, if you're going out for a nice meal, you might want a cocktail to bookend it, and it's been so cool to watch that from the sidelines. And to your point, yeah, and it's not just the drink strategy that needs to be able to apply to venues, but, like, the same with your POS and everything else.
Alex Watson:You need to think operational first so that you don't come up with something that looks really cool on a PowerPoint, and then it gets to a venue and a GM is like, I'm just not touching any of that. So you always need to think about the application.
Chris Maffeo:Yeah. Another thing that I wrote down is very fascinating for me is how you can move the second steps of a brand moving from the core city that you have identified, in this case, London, to other cities by playing with this kind of national chains. No? Because then all of a sudden allows you to play in those certain areas. And then all of a sudden, you may have three spots in I mean, you mentioned, like, Oxford or whatever.
Chris Maffeo:It could be Manchester or Birmingham or whatever. And then, you know, out of that, then all all of a sudden, you've got a kinda like a boots on the ground, so to say, and then you can move from there. And then you can start to reconnect with, you know, maybe a Mancunian bartender that moved back home from London and knew your brand from before. And, you know, the whole theory about, you know, the six degrees of separation and all these kind of things that it's so fascinating for me to understand how this is something that I talk about in the brands are built bottom up, how you can really move the needle if you have managed to build demand with strong foundations where you started even if it was in London and it was in a countryside kind of town.
Alex Watson:Yeah. I agree. You and I both know how small the drinks world really is, especially in that elite bartending circle. I feel incredibly fortunate that since I've started the product, I've had the privilege to travel around the world and meet with distributors and go to trade shows and events. You see so many of the same people and so many of the top bartenders will pivot between different venues on different sides of the world and you can end up having a sort of global network or at least a nationwide network very quickly because bartenders tend to be very international and move around a lot.
Alex Watson:Yeah. I think you can by patiently building your blocks and getting that advocacy piece right is the key kind of to expansion as well.
Chris Maffeo:And how do you like, mentioning the, you know, the distributors element of this. How do you manage to let's say, what's your experience in translating that message? The origin story is a very personal story for you and your family. So how do you manage to translate that? I mean, first of all, to the team, so to the internal team, and then also to the wider.
Chris Maffeo:I mean, not only to customers that we discussed, but all in the kind of, like, link of the chain in between, you know, the distributor element before it hits the trade.
Alex Watson:Yeah. I mean, it is a challenge because there is a lot of story there, and if you're not careful and I'm doing a tasting you for the first time, I'll take you back like thirty years to grape picking and my dad planting vines and all that sort of stuff to convey. I think in practical terms when working with a distributor, it's almost drilling it down into that one two three, because if they've got five minutes to try and sell something or explain it, you can't begin really talking too much about grape varietals until this kind of long family history and stuff. So you have to work really hard to condense the story down into something quick and kind of sellable and that's something that we're still figuring out now to be honest. But a good example again would be coat where on the menu they put in where the inspiration comes from, from the vineyards and the fact that it's grape distilled and so on and if you do it right even with a kind of a scale partner like them, then you have the opportunity to kind of tell that story about what the product is and where it comes from.
Alex Watson:I think luckily at least to your point on packaging and that being really the other first touch point, you can kind of look at the bottle and understand and see that it looks luxury, French inspired, and then look a bit closer at the packaging, see that it's distilled from French wine grapes and so on, and pick up some of those other visual cues. But, yeah, there's a lot that can either get not conveyed or lost in translation with the product.
Chris Maffeo:I can imagine. And building on what you were saying about luxury now, what about the let's say, how do you play in the market, so to say? Because you were mentioning, like, you know, the top end of the gin kind of world. How how do you navigate that into your your strategies? I mean, without getting detailed into confidential stuff, but whatever you can share.
Alex Watson:Yeah. There is an inherent well, there there's a tension point between being at this kind of in the top 1% and scaling. How do you sort of translate luxury a luxury product into a wider consumer audience is the challenge. And I don't think there's any easy answers or or solutions to that. That there is a cusp or a threshold at which consumers who are going to Sainsbury's or Waitrose or whatever are prepared to tag on to their weekly shop in terms of a bottle of gin.
Alex Watson:So you know when you want to reach that level of scale I think you have to start being mindful of that and thinking about where you need to grow volume for the brand and your positioning and all of these different tension points that exist in your proposition and what you're trying to accomplish. Because I don't you can't I don't think you can have it all.
Chris Maffeo:One of the things that I'm discussing very often lately, it's a dear topic of mine, is actually this middle ground going back to the family heritage. You know, my father used to say all the time, virtuesta lays in the middle. And, ultimately, when we go back to the pyramid kind of thing, that's always the sweet spot. A brand like yours cannot be mainstream, but it needs to scale. And that middle ground, that's exactly where it happens.
Chris Maffeo:And if you nail that, that's where you can be very interesting in the market for any stakeholder of your brand. But very often, there is the tendency for brands to stay a little bit too niche. And I don't know about you in the past, but for me, when I was in S. A. B.
Chris Maffeo:Miller, I've often been that guy, especially when I had my marketing hats on. I used to sell pepperoni, and I was always like, we cannot be in those venues. You will ruin the brand. Like, don't sell there and so on. And it's always very tricky because you can still do that.
Chris Maffeo:And I was discussing this with with Paul Thomas from from BIM Santori, the head of insights there. And we're saying, what is perceived for you as a treat may not be the same treat for another person. And, you know, somebody with a lower spending purchasing power, you know, a treat may be having a a pepperoni on a Friday night, you know, that, you know, then during the rest of the week, they may go for a bitter, and then they would choose to go to up trade to pepperoni. So there is a market also for super premium kind of products even in a wider selection because there is that kind of demand of that affordable luxury when you're not talking crazy crazy money per serve.
Alex Watson:Yeah. Definitely. And and you kind of just look at some of the success stories or case studies that have managed to straddle that positioning perfectly. You know, they probably haven't come in super rigid and have had to flex or adapt to the market to find the right tension point in the positioning. But, like, you know, the Jin Mares of the world are are probably a good example where they were doing massive volume in the on premise and in high end hospitality group, but were also successfully pulling through in grocery in supermarkets at that price point during the Kraft Gin boom when there was seemingly no top end to the category.
Alex Watson:But, you know, the case studies or success stories are kind of clear, I think, in for the brands who've got that right.
Chris Maffeo:And this is something we were discussing again with Maurice in the previous episodes where we were talking about the fact that I was discussing with Ben Branson from from Sidlip and Silva, and, you know, we were talking about the fact that there's there is no cookie cutter kind of formula. No? I mean, you've been in Diageo. I've been in Miller. I've been in Cosby.
Chris Maffeo:I've been working with many vegan small brands. It's almost like a capital sin to think you've cracked it. Because the moment you think you've cracked it, that's the moment that karma hits you on the forehead with something. So it's always like it's about having principles Mhmm. You know, that you stick to rather than kinda like dogmatic approaches to, okay, we are gonna do this and not gonna do that.
Chris Maffeo:It's kinda like the shades of gray in between the these things.
Alex Watson:Yeah. And I think especially at a time when the market and the economy is so dynamic and in flux, if your strategy is totally rigid, then you're probably gonna get caught out and be in trouble because the constraints and pressures that are put on buyers for pubs, bars, and restaurant groups now in terms of what they can afford to buy and how they do their purchasing and so on is totally different to what it was five years ago. And likewise for consumers at the moment who, you know, I'm speaking about from a UK perspective, but are going through a cost of living crisis. If you're driving ever higher price points and then wanting to scale in grocery, then you're going get caught out as well. So I think for our industry now more than ever, with all of the headwinds we're facing, you have to be incredibly reactive and agile in order to adapt and figure out how to survive in this new climate.
Chris Maffeo:Mhmm. The the importance for me is kinda like the trajectory of your brand, and then you can have a kinda like plus minus deviations. You know? The importance is you're aiming kinda like sort of Northwest. You know?
Chris Maffeo:And then if some days you'll be a little bit more west, you know, some days will be you'll be a little bit more north. But then if you're going south and east, then then that's a problem with your brand. So it's more about trying to find a balance to really say, okay. We know consciously we are taking a bit of a deroute because of certain type of situation that we found in the market. Because, ultimately, the word that I like to use is always the drinks ecosystem.
Chris Maffeo:You know? There's so many players involved, and you can never really play those big charts from big companies where our competitive set is this, this, this, and this. Forget about it. In some countries, you may not even have those brands distributed, And then one of those brands may be super premium and in another market would be almost mainstream. So how do you navigate that?
Chris Maffeo:It's more about what is true to you, what is true to your principles, and how do you stick to that in in, let's say, as much as you can without jeopardizing the future?
Alex Watson:Yeah. I think interestingly, for us at least, it's almost kind kind of occasion led, which is that the heartland for Renais is in places like Michelin style restaurants, places with great wine lists, high end cocktail bars, places where you have that time and space and where people might choose to trade up for a more kind of artisanal gin, basically. So then you kind of work backward from that occasion and you figure out like okay well what's influencing their decision making and buying and how do we adjust our strategy to fit in with what needs to go there, because we know where we want to be, we know where the brand is succeeding, and let's figure out how to almost work backwards from there and kind of go that way.
Chris Maffeo:I love that. I love that kinda like, you know, thinking backward from, you know, starting with the end in in mind because ultimately that's what, you know, really matters rather than you know, like, you can never I don't know how about, you know, how it was for you, but, you know, it it's always like you have a sort of an idea when you start. I remember when I was in Asahi and the CEO, Paolo, asked a question in the room. We were having a big meeting, and it was one of those kind of transformation meeting when after the the the SEB Miller, you know, takeover by ABI. And it was like, who knows which day of the year you understand that the strategy for that year was wrong.
Chris Maffeo:You know? And then the answer is like January 2. Yeah.
Alex Watson:I agree. It's funny. I was listening to a podcast recently with the CEO of Netflix, and his like foundational principle is that there are no good ideas or there are no good businesses. There's just people who go in and realize quick enough that their original idea was wrong and that they can pivot fast enough. And that's something that's stayed with me as well and it's such a good case study because they started as a male to DVD service and now they're a media streaming platform and join.
Alex Watson:But I think it's the same is true of your brand and your products and your business model. You have to learn so quickly and be agile, play fail fast, and play into the things that are succeeding and the things that aren't dropping quick.
Chris Maffeo:Absolutely. Yeah. Yes. I think it's a nice loop back to the beginning of the episode where we were talking about the importance of being, like, the face of the brand and the personification, but being wary of not having your ego into that brand because that's the dangerous kind of thing, you know. When you don't want to kinda lose face because you said you were so a 100% sure about certain things and then you said, shit, you know, like, what are people gonna think about me now?
Chris Maffeo:It's just like that's ultimately the thing about being confident enough to say, look. I thought I knew. I don't know if I'm right now, which is a 180 kind of degrees shift, but let's go with it and find out. And obviously, not in a random way, but at least to have kind of weighted the decisions and be ready to listen to the market and what the market has to say and analyze and be able to filter that feedback as well, which is also very often overlooked.
Alex Watson:Yeah. And you also gotta be careful because you'll get feedback from everywhere and from all sides and it may not always lead you anywhere useful either unfortunately. But yeah, I think if you're not if you're not making mistakes and you're not failing at things then you're not you're probably not trying hard enough. If you're not testing and learning and trying things, then you you probably won't optimize your sales strategy or brand strategy. Absolutely.
Alex Watson:The only way to do that is to try.
Chris Maffeo:Yeah. And I'm a big fan of doing this kinda like small experiments in three, four venues kind of thing. Before you roll it out so that you see how does the consumer, the trade react to this. And then it's like, okay, let's, you know, this kind of like agile thinking. And then, okay.
Chris Maffeo:Let's try it in 10 and then in 10 more and then in 10 more. Okay. Now we can actually roll it out. And I heard, like, going back to Netflix example, I was reading something about Spotify that the way they roll out updates, it's never really all at once. You know, they pick kinda like a country and they pick a few users and they roll it out.
Chris Maffeo:So in my Spotify, maybe actually different than your Spotify because we are in different countries, but also in the same country, maybe the same. And then once that, you know, they get the feedback from the testing on what people click and how easy it is to navigate stuff, then they actually, you know, roll it out to different kind of people, which is super interesting for me now that, you know, bigger companies and tech companies are doing it in that kind of way.
Alex Watson:Yeah. And in the tech world, it's so easy because you get the data back so quickly. But I think in the drinks world, consumer events are such a good test and learning opportunity in that sense. We try and do a few good ones each year where we'll have thousands of customers come through a little bar that we're operating or if we're doing a pop up menu with a bar or restaurant, those are really your opportunities to try a new serve or gauge some feedback or get a vibe check on some other initiative that you're trying. Use those as the opportunities to prove whatever it is you're wanting to test.
Chris Maffeo:And you really understand, okay, this is something that we want to double on or skip for next year. So let's wrap this up. And how can people find you and Renais Gin and give us some info so that people can find you as well?
Alex Watson:Yeah. Absolutely. So our website is always a great place to start. Equally, our social media, we've got a great Instagram page that we put a lot of effort into putting drinks content and instructional videos and some less instructional or helpful videos. And then you can find Renais all over the world at this point.
Alex Watson:We export into about 15 markets, mostly around Europe but also in The US, and in The UK you can find us in Waitrose, Amethyst, and Selfridges, and kind of high end retailers, and then increasingly with bigger on premise groups across The UK. So keep your eyes peeled for us.
Chris Maffeo:Fantastic. So thanks a lot, Alex. It was a pleasure. I hope to meet you in person somewhere in the world at some point and have a drink together.
Alex Watson:I was gonna say, we gotta go for a drink at some time, mate.
Chris Maffeo:Fantastic. Thank you.
Alex Watson:My pleasure. Thanks for having me.