Brewing up some Branding

It truly blows my mind how quickly time has been passing by. It's been almost a week since my last post, but I swear it feels like minutes ago that I finished the last sentence. And wait, it's almost November. What??? This past week we had the pleasure of learning from Beth Fetzer, currently a planner at DraftFCB in NYC. She was very insightful and intelligent. She was our first planner that still works in an agency, so it was good to get her perspective.

And now a story about beer and branding- a very happy matrimony indeed. On Thursday evening our Spanish representative, Antonio, invited us all over to his place because he was going "to make a party". Before the party I stopped by the store to pick up some wine and beer. As I stood in front of beer cooler I was confronted with several brands as well as a social conundrum: clearly whatever I brought was going to be a direct reflection of me so I needed to choose wisely. I spotted the Stella Artois, one of my favorite pilsners, but decided that might look like I'm trying too hard. Then I looked for the Trumer Pils, another fave, but they were out and besides that I wasn't it would have been the crowd-pleaser I was looking for. I considered one more local microbrew before I ultimately landed on the Anderson Valley Brewing Company's seasonal brew called "Winter Solstice". After dissecting my decision making process, I've concluded that my brand of preference (not beer, important to note) was one that reflected my adventurous side (willing to break away from the familiar), positioned me as someone in the know (I was the first to discover this seasonal brew), and if the beer actually tasted good I was also responsible for making others happy (and if it was bad, I could just shrug and say that at least I tried!). The beer turned out to taste great and the part was a great time. Cheers.