”INNOVATION. Our lives don’t depend on it but our livelihoods do.” This opening statement by Adrian McKeon, managing director, Beam Global Distribution UK, at the drinks business Innovation Forum at the beginning of September, seemed to turn into the mantra for the day.
The importance of innovation in today’s drinks industry is undoubted. But how? And when, as John Grant, author of The Brand Innovation Manifesto, pointed out, does marketing become innovation or innovation become marketing? Surely the two are now so interlinked that the make up of any company’s marketing function must include a resource that is dedicated purely to innovation.
Ideas and case studies were brought to the day’s forum from people working both inside and outside the drinks business. Can we learn from what is happening in other categories within the drinks industry? Can beer professionals learn from wine? Spirits from beer? And what innovation models can we adopt from other industries? | Tamara Minick-Scokalo, senior vice president for Elizabeth Arden, gave the assembled delegates plenty of food for thought. But can the drinks industry really persuade consumers to pay as much for a bottle of gin as they do for a pot of face cream?
the drinks business Innovation Forum provided a lively platform for debate and raised more questions that it provided answers. The fact remains however that, as an industry, we are currently trading under increasingly difficult conditions and it was suggested by some that there exists within our commercial “establishment” systems that inhibit brand owners, suppliers and indeed retailers from being able to really innovate. There needs to be a break in our established trading models so that innovation can be allowed to happen and so that the drinks business can excite and inspire the consumer instead of baffling them.
Interestingly, the product referred to most throughout the day as epitomising the essence of innovation was the iPod. When, if indeed it is at all possible, will our industry create an equivalent? Charlotte Hey
editorial director & publisher |
