Why I’m Bullish On Proof-It
If you work in the wine and spirits industry, you don’t need me to tell you what’s going on out there. It’s grim.
For those of you who don’t, let me fill you in on the last six months:
The market is saturated
Consumers are scaling back their consumption
Retail sales are down
Distribution sales are down
Middlemen are eating up the profits
Instagram just changed its algorithm again
Everyone is suddenly an influencer
If you’re a brand owner in the current market, the dilemma is quite clear. Your distributors can’t afford to buy more product until they can move their current inventory, yet the retailers can’t help move that inventory until their customers return to normal purchasing habits. Meanwhile, you’re only getting 30-40% of your standard interaction on Instagram, while receiving 47 DMs a day from “influencers” who will help connect you to potential targets in exchange for money and free samples.
With all these middlemen controlling the relationships between the brand and the end consumer, eating away at the remaining profits while generating their own leads, a direct line to the customer wouldn’t simply be a lifesaver, it would be an absolute game changer.
When I met Aware CEO Vince Anido six months ago through a mutual friend and he showed me what proof-it could do, I knew I had just seen the future of the wine and spirits industry. Everything we discussed was theoretical, but he reassured me it was entirely possible.
Two months later, we had working proof-it tags on bottles via Leopold Bros, one of my biggest clients here at Two-Nineteen, and the proof was in the pudding (pardon the pun). To get the full idea of what proof-it does, you can check out their website here. For the sake of brevity, however, I’ll summarize as quickly as possible:
proof-it creates interactive labels that go over the cork and sit on the neck of a wine or spirits bottle
By holding any smart phone near the proof-it tag, a window pops up that brings you to a webpage not just specific to that brand, but specific to that very bottle
Acting as both an authenticator (protecting against counterfeits) and a portal to a greater understanding about the product, brands can create detailed experiences for any consumer with a smart phone, whether they’re browsing the aisles or sitting at the bar
Each individual tag is unique and customizable (this is NOT a QR code), and speaks to the provenance, batch number, and origin of that specific bottle, giving consumers greater insight and confidence over their purchase
Consumers can sign up for newsletters and more information about the brand via the proof-it portal when they register their bottles
If that alone doesn’t excite you as a brand owner, I don’t know what will—especially in today’s market climate! The ability to control the exact message presented directly to consumers, on the actual bottle at the moment of decision-making, as well as after the product has been purchased, is what every client I work with is currently lusting after. Whether you’re a brand owner, importer, distributor, or retailer, the number one question we’re all asking ourselves is: how can we generate more leads right now?
Proof-it isn’t just the answer, it’s the most effective lead-generation tool I’ve ever come across in my seventeen years of industry experience. Beyond that, it creates a unique wormhole between my creativity as a marketer and the smart phone of the consumer I’m trying to reach directly. All they have to do is hold their phone next to the bottle and—poof!—we’ve got their attention. Whether it’s a short video about the production of the whiskey, or an overview of the product specifics, you can communicate with any consumer right there on the bottle, no subject expert or middleman required.
If that sounds too good to be true, let me assure you: it isn’t. I don’t have to speculate about what proof-it can do, because I’ve already seen the results as a sales director. Just two months into our campaign of the Leopold Bros 8 year old Bourbon (a single product in the vast Leopold Bros portfolio) we’ve generated more newsletter sign ups and social media followers than in the entire year previously using traditional methods. Imagine when we expand proof-it to the rest of the book!
Think about it this way: when retailers began selling wine and spirits online, there were plenty of stores who sat on the sideline waiting to see how the technology played out. Twenty-five years later, the most successful retailers in America are the ones who built the best web experiences for their consumers. Once again, we’re at a similar moment in the evolution of our industry, just on the brand side of the business.
By the end of 2025, there’s going to be a clear distinction in the wine and spirits game when it comes to the consumer experience. It will be divided between those who use proof-it, and those who don’t, with the former enjoying a clear marketing advantage over the latter.
-David Driscoll