Latest / Craft Brewery Financial Training Podcast / Inside Athletic Brewing’s Playbook

Transcript

Inside Athletic Brewing’s Playbook · Craft Brewery Financial Training Podcast

• 0:00
  Kary Shumway: Today on the podcast, we hear from Evan Zuwatsky and Chris Fernari from Athletic Brewing.
• 0:04
  Kary Shumway: We talk all about athletics growth and the financial and strategic decisions that helped make that growth possible.
• 0:12
  Kary Shumway: We talk marketing, strategy, return on investment, partnerships, accountability, customer focus, and market trends.
• 0:20
  Kary Shumway: And we end with the crystal ball question: where do they see the industry headed and what is next for athletic brewing?
• 0:27
  Kary Shumway: So for now, please enjoy this conversation with Evan and Chris from Athletic Brewing.
• 0:33
  Kary Shumway: Welcome to the Kraft Brewery Financial Training Podcast, where we combine beer and numbers to provide you with tips, tactics, and strategies so that you can improve financial results in your brewery.
• 0:44
  Kary Shumway: I'm your host, Carrie Shemoy, a CPA, CFO for a brewery, and a former CFO for a beer distributor.
• 0:50
  Kary Shumway: I've spent the last 20 years using finance to improve financial results in our beer business.
• 0:55
  Kary Shumway: Now I'm helping other craft breweries to do the same.
• 0:59
  Kary Shumway: Are you ready to take your brewery financial results to the next level?
• 1:02
  Kary Shumway: Okay, let's get started.
• 1:08
  Kary Shumway: Just a quick note, we'll be right back to the podcast.
• 1:11
  Kary Shumway: I want to let you know about a new network for beer industry professionals.
• 1:15
  Kary Shumway: It's called the Beer Business Finance Association.
• 1:18
  Kary Shumway: It's an organization of financial pros, just like you, looking to improve financial results, increase profitability, connect with your peers, and share best practices.
• 1:29
  Kary Shumway: So I'd love to tell you a little bit more about this.
• 1:32
  Kary Shumway: If you are interested in learning more, please email me, Carrie at Beer Business Finance.com.
• 1:37
  Kary Shumway: That's K-A-R-Y at beer businessfinance.com, or you can visit bbfassociation.org.
• 1:45
  Kary Shumway: That's bfassociation.org to learn more.
• 1:50
  Kary Shumway: Hey Evan and Chris, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:54
  Kary Shumway: It is great to see you guys this morning.
• 1:56
  Kary Shumway: Yeah, thanks for having us.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:59
  Kary Shumway: So let's uh let's do some quick introductions.
• 2:02
  Kary Shumway: Evan, why don't you start?
• 2:03
  Kary Shumway: Tell us a little bit about you, your background, and your company.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm the CFO of Athletic Brewing Company.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh joined about four and a half years ago.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I I've been in the star space for about 15 years, uh, working with growth companies.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I started my career as a CPA, so I got my chops in accounting, uh, pivoted to um to uh finance and uh the starp side, like I said, about 15 years ago.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I came to Athletic at a really interesting time.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh category was still growing, it was still early.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um but Athletic had a great proof of concept, they had great traction in the non-alcoholic market, and they were they were already becoming a leader in the space, uh, but still plenty of work to do, um, both in building out infrastructure for finance, um and also as a company continuing to um elevate the category and ourselves.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been really fun and uh yeah, love love being athletic for sure.
• 3:00
  Kary Shumway: Awesome.
• 3:01
  Kary Shumway: You're my people, CPA, CFO, love the members.
• 3:04
  Kary Shumway: Good combo, right?
• 3:05
  Kary Shumway: I love it.
• 3:05
  Kary Shumway: And Chris, how about you give us a little background on you and uh your role at the company?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: Not your people, not a finance guy, uh communications guy.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um Chris Fernari, uh, I oversee comms at Athletic, uh spent uh quite a bit of time covering the beer industry for uh BevNet, Brewbound, Forbes, and some other publications over the years.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, really fell in love with craft beer and the industry.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, I think for many years kind of wanted to explore opportunities to actually work with a brewery.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and Athletic was sort of the perfect fit for my lifestyle.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh similar to Evan, I joined about four and a half years ago.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um at a, you know, as he said, an interesting time for the company.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: We were starting to really ramp up production and grow quite a bit, um, adding lots of new teammates.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: And there was a need uh at the time.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I actually didn't start in a communications role.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: I started kind of more on like the emerging brand side, um, thinking about new product innovation and you know, some different areas of the marketplace that we might be able to play and very quickly transitioned into a communications role when it was clear we had a need for that at the company.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I've been doing that for um about three and a half years now.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh love it.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh love, you know, being a part of the marketing team and getting to see a different side of the business and you know, interacting with all my old friends in the beer industry, um, you know, some of the wonderful trade outlets like Beer Business Daily and Beer Marketers Insights and my old trade outlet, Brewbound.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: And you, of course.
• 4:46
  Kary Shumway: That's awesome.
• 4:46
  Kary Shumway: And you are my people, Chris.
• 4:48
  Kary Shumway: I love with the numbers, they they need communication.
• 4:51
  Kary Shumway: We got to tell the people and marketing too.
• 4:53
  Kary Shumway: That rings the bell.
• 4:54
  Kary Shumway: So it's all one virtuous cycle, I believe.
• 4:58
  Kary Shumway: So you're in the club.
• 5:00
  Kary Shumway: You're you're in the club with me and Evan.
• 5:03
  Kary Shumway: So cool.
• 5:04
  Kary Shumway: Today, yeah, let's athletic.
• 5:06
  Kary Shumway: You guys are on a rocket ship ride.
• 5:07
  Kary Shumway: This is it's pretty amazing, the story, and you know, I'm excited to kind of dig in and and learn from you guys.
• 5:13
  Kary Shumway: So, Evan, maybe to kind of kick things off, you know, talk through this growth phase, a huge expansion and and growth and whatnot.
• 5:21
  Kary Shumway: What are some of the key financial or strategic decisions that helped make that growth possible?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I would say one of the key decisions that also has huge implications for finance is that our co-founders, Bill and John, made the decision to uh build our own breweries and really build the product um and lead with the production and focus on quality of product.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so um when I when I joined, we were just um we were before our um now Milford brewery.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we were still in Stratford, Connecticut.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so we made the decision to uh invest significantly in building a state-of-the-art um brewery that would be a leader in the NA space.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and then if and then if you uh fast forward a few more years, we recently just opened up um started producing about a month ago, a new brewery out in San Diego.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: So a ton of CapEx.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's obviously a big decision because you're choosing to put more money into CapEx and obviously a dollar in one place is a dollar less for somewhere else.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um also has implications for fundraising and capital structure.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I think um looking back, it's it's been a huge advantage for us to be able to produce our own product.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um the obvious ones is that we have more flexibility, we can be more responsive to trends uh to bring on innovation and different flavors.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um and for anyone who's a customer on our e-com site, you know how many beers we are producing all year round, 50 plus.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so variety is very big for us.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think for quality, we're able to capture um the utmost, highest possible quality out there.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then also from a very finance end long term, it obviously brings about better gross margins.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as you ramp up those breweries, you're keeping more for yourself.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the better our margins are, the more we can invest in team marketing and plenty of other areas of the business.
• 7:23
  Kary Shumway: Great.
• 7:23
  Kary Shumway: Yeah, that's that's awesome.
• 7:25
  Kary Shumway: And Chris, from your perspective, um how has Athletic evolved as the company has scaled in terms of maybe your approach to communication, marketing, uh the brand story?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: I I mean, I think generally speaking, you know, we've uh really evolved our storytelling.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think the big initiative this year, or I should say, heading into 2026, is, you know, explaining what our product is or shifting from explaining what our product is to kind of who our brand is for.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Bill Schufeld and John Walker have done an amazing job over the years of, I guess, one, telling, you know, kind of their personal stories, but two, also convincing people to drink non-alcoholic beer.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think when they launched in mid-2018, um, the idea of keeping non-alcoholic beer in your fridge and drinking it throughout the week or whenever you know you you wanted to have a beer, um, but maybe without the alcohol, that was sort of a foreign concept to a lot of customers.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: And um, even in the earliest days, you know, Bill tells some great stories about, you know, going to a retail one of his first, you know, couple hundred retail accounts, um, setting up a table, trying to sample customers as they walked in the door, and uh, you know, basically standing there for several hours and having people laugh in his face um at the idea of a non-alcoholic beer.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I think consumer perception around non-alcoholic beer has changed considerably.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's now, you know, way less stigmatized.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's something that people are, you know, very aware of as a product.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think Bill and John deserve a lot of credit for that, you know, building the category.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um and yes, you know, we've also told our story at the same time.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I think now, you know, our job is to really lean into some of the elements of our story that we haven't uh maybe had enough time to explain to customers, you know, all the investment that we've made in product quality and food safety and you know what sets us apart, um, you know, what our brand is all about, those are some of the uh storytelling elements that we're really leaning into now.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and yeah, I think that you know, that's that comes with growth, that comes with time.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, at different points in your life cycle, you're gonna be telling different stories.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, oftentimes when startup you know companies launch, especially in the beer space, all they have is a founder story.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: And 10 years later, you know, you have a lot more storylines you can tell.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, that's that's about the stage of development we're at from a communication standpoint.
• 10:11
  Kary Shumway: Yeah, that's cool.
• 10:12
  Kary Shumway: You know, it's interesting to me because like with beverages, it it comes down to flavor a lot of the times too.
• 10:18
  Kary Shumway: And I think perhaps one of the challenges with non-alcoholic beer in the past is like, yeah, there's not a whole lot going on here.
• 10:24
  Kary Shumway: But you know, they really tapped into the to the flavor profiles too, in terms of what beer drinkers like to drink.
• 10:30
  Kary Shumway: Because I know a lot, I'll speak just personally, a lot of my buddies like love the beer because of that.
• 10:35
  Kary Shumway: It's like, wow, that actually tastes like a really good IPA as opposed to something not quite right.
• 10:41
  Kary Shumway: So I think nailing, you know, the packaging and flavor as well as probably meeting the market where it is right now.
• 10:48
  Kary Shumway: You know, that seems to be where the trends are of maybe low or no alk options are just becoming certainly more popular.
• 10:56
  Kary Shumway: So you guys have really hit the hit the bullseye on that.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, our our brewing team is immensely talented.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they have tons of creative ideas.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Bill and John, when they started the company, Bill's idea was look, if non-alcoholic beer, you know, were any good, if the methods worked, the beer would be good.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so we have to completely reinvent how we make non-alcoholic beer.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where John came in and they they did, you know, hundreds of trial batches.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: And even to this day, our team has taken kind of the foundation that Bill and John built from the earliest days, and they've continued to iterate and improve our processes.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so what started as sort of like one proprietary process, there are now multiple permutations of that.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, the beer just keeps getting better and better.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: And as we continue to invest in our facilities, um in our food safety and in our quality, we're able to really take the, you know, the level of quality in the beer to completely new heights.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that's been amazing to see.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: I always thought the beer tasted great, but you know, it's it just continues to get better and better.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say on that note, as a product gets better and better, um, ideally demand also for it is increasing.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think the exciting part for our breweries um and owning the production process is that if we are hitting an innovation and responding to new trends and new flavor profiles that people want, um, as any CFO wants to do, we can respond to those upside cases.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're not we're really not constrained.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so uh producing the product is is the first step to to making flavor that people like, but also being able to consistently fulfill the product and get in their fridges is really really we we have to nail that.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and that's what the power of the breweries um allows us to do.
• 12:51
  Kary Shumway: Yeah, that's great.
• 12:53
  Kary Shumway: Um and Chris, when you think about sort of from a marketing strategy standpoint, how do you how do you decide what initiatives deserve investment?
• 13:02
  Kary Shumway: Because you could, I mean, there's there's any number of ways you could go.
• 13:05
  Kary Shumway: How do you kind of think about think about that?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, I mean, I I told the story of Bill showing up in a retail account and you know, basically getting laughed at.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: And from that moment on, he realized that, you know, he needed to identify people when they were kind of at their happiest, um, when they were really thirsty, and when they, you know, were open, more open to trying a non-alcoholic beer.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so what emerged was, you know, sort of a sampling and activation strategy at uh finish lines, you know, starting in Connecticut, but you know, now all across the country and internationally.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so, you know, basically when people finish a 5K or 10K or a half marathon, they're sweaty, you know, they got their endorphins running, and uh they're very willing to, you know, uh be open-minded about a non-alcoholic beer.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: So you stick a cold beer in their hands, they drink it, it tastes great, and you know, suddenly uh you really break down that barrier, uh, that initial sort of hurdle of why would I drink a non-alcoholic beer?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it all becomes very clear in that moment.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: So he had a lot of success uh in that environment, you know, basically gathering our first 1,000 customers, um, our true fans.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think liquid delips, cans in hands, is always gonna be sort of like our number one uh recruitment tool in an area of the business that we invest pretty heavily in.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then, you know, what we're doing is I guess you'd call it sort of like a 360 strategy.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: We're investing um not just in digital marketing or out-of-home or partnerships or uh talent relationships or influencers.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we're really trying to do all of that as opposed to focusing on one single strategy.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, I think that's worked.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: We've had to create, you know, a lot of noise around the product and around our brand and get people uh to be more familiar with athletic and non-alcoholic beer and really build up the category in that way and invest quite a bit of money into marketing over the years.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's worked.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it's not any one strategy, uh, but we we tend to look at um areas where we think we're gonna have success and try a lot of new things.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: And if it doesn't work, you know, we move on.
• 15:59
  Kary Shumway: Yeah, I like to try it by it because it's we tend to get away from maybe the fundamentals of the consumers got to try this stuff, enjoy it, and then they're gonna actually go purchase it as opposed to just, well, I don't know.
• 16:09
  Kary Shumway: So, in terms of breaking down that barrier, I like the way you describe that is like have them have them just drink it, you know, and you're like, wow, that tastes tastes good.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, as much as track track traction has as we made of as a as a company and as a category, there's still a lot of people who have not tried athletic or who have not tried a good NA beer.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Even we we've like I've done sampling events like in core markets, and I get surprised by how many people are still unaware of um the options out there.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, like Chris said, I mean, cans and hands is is is huge for us.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's um a very easy way to uh to uh convert someone into a believer, very simply by just trying the product.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I think also we talk a lot about the balance between upper funnel and bottom of funnel.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's that's kind of like one of those um balances of spend that you're never going to perfect.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's very hard to, it's not, it's not uh you want to make it as scientific as possible, but it's hard to get that perfect equilibrium between upper funnel and bottom of funnel.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the things like out-of-home media and you know commercials and whatnot that that um that Chris mentioned, it's um we talk a lot about finding that right balance of we want to boost awareness, make people aware of athletic as a brand.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then hopefully with that coupled with the hands in hands, that becoming aware of us high level and then actually trying the product, those two things together um we know work very nicely in order to convert someone to a customer.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
• 17:40
  Kary Shumway: And Evan, maybe let's expand on that a little bit because a lot of times I think there's a desire to figure out a return on investment, right?
• 17:47
  Kary Shumway: Like because breweries are always like, well, how much should I invest?
• 17:50
  Kary Shumway: And you know, how do I measure that?
• 17:52
  Kary Shumway: So how do you approach that?
• 17:53
  Kary Shumway: Like thinking just generally about you know marketing uh dollars and return on investment for those dollars.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So the hard part is that it's hard to perfectly quantify everything.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um in finance and accounting, people would love to do that, and there is some judgment involved.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: We do our best to quantify to compare two different options.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, if we sponsor like an event, like we sponsor Iron Man, for example, we will never know for sure.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: We spent X dollars on this event and it converted to Y dollars of revenue.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um but what we can do is reasonably assess whether we got a return on that sponsorship versus maybe other ones.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, there are things that you can directly quantify, like some events we do sell beer.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that's obviously very easy.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: We know how much the gross profit is on that beer sold.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but if you ever look at just the beer sold at an event versus what we paid to be there, it's almost always going to be less than the actual fee to be there.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to believe that there's uh benefit to awareness gains that we make by the attendees of the event simply seeing our brand and also ideally trying our product.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: You obviously know that less than 100% of those people will become customers, but it'll be greater than 0%.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to get a comfort zone of um quantifying in a way that is uh as reasonable as you can as you can make in terms of we know the number of attendees that are at the event, we know X percent um will likely try the beer, and we know maybe of those there's a less of a percent chance that you know that person will ultimately go to a retailer and buy the product.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you if you do that and you're consistent with your assumptions across opportunities, then you can get to an apples to apples comparison of which options should I do?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of the dialogue within the marketing team and with the finance team is there's a lot of ideas that we have.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: We do have a limited budget for the marketing team.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have to be very uh precise and logical about what bets we're taking, because we can't take all the bets.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if we choose one thing over another, again, we're not going to be able to perfectly measure the ROI on that um area of spend.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: But we should have an opinion about based on this analysis that I did, here's why I think the the way I spent this money on this event or this um thing is better than if I spent that money on something else.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I would just add to that that, you know, there are ways to um assess the effectiveness of our marketing spend um by looking at, you know, say awareness pre and post, right?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: So if we're doing some sort of marketing campaign in a market, we can look at the awareness before we run the campaign and look at awareness after, and then you know, say this was effective or this was not effective.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: And that gives us, you know, something to build on in the future as well.
• 21:03
  Kary Shumway: How do you think about awareness?
• 21:04
  Kary Shumway: Like what is that a measurable or what what does that mean to you in terms of that word?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, I can I can certainly add my perspective.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: I know Evan has probably a slightly different perspective, but um, we have ways of measuring consumer awareness, so aided or unaided, and you know, we work with some partners to um identify what that is.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but that's you know, as simple as surveying uh customers in a given market or you know, a nationally representative sample, um, and just asking them, you know, are they aware of non-alcoholic beer, which brands they're aware of, giving them a list of brands and asking, you know, which ones they're aware of.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, we can it we can see, okay, there's you know, 20% awareness, 30% awareness, right, of these brands, um, and then benchmarking ourselves against some of our competitors.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so, you know, I would say awareness as a for a marketing team, right?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's sort of our North Star.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: Our number one goal is to increase brand awareness.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, what Evan would say is yes, you you have to do that, but you have to do it um, you know, within budget and you have to be cognizant of how much it costs, and we still have to have a return on our investment.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, when you said when you say when Chris says return, so from a finance end, I mean ultimately we care about revenue.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: If we're not growing revenue as a company, then we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the um I would say awareness is the first part of the equation.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's step number one.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, someone has to be aware of the brand of Athletic if they're going to go buy us at the store.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um so and within within marketing's goals and what and the initiatives that they're doing, they are able to directly impact awareness.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Awareness doesn't always lead to purchases.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're aware, you mean you're probably aware of thousands of brands and you're not purchasing all those brands, right?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: So from my end, if I saw that we were scoring well on awareness, but we weren't meeting revenue expectations, that would kind of lead to a question of what's going on.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we're we're we're we're doing we're meeting our goal of people are aware of us, we're not converting.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Why are we not converting?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and and that and that would that would be the dialogue that we would need to have.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think um one also really really nice metric to look at is uh rate of sale.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: So we look at rate of sale cases per month, per week for a given store.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and we can also look at rate of sale for uh same store sales, which is also a really good metric because obviously when you first get on a shelf, it might take a few months to ramp up and get people to be aware that you're on the shelf.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I would I would say um rate of sale is more of like a company goal that's not just marketing, it's also sales.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: We have our sales team like in-stores, um making some really amazing case stacks, making sure we're on the shelf, being shown in in the right way.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but but I would say that um for the marketing team, if we're producing content and campaigns that are really resonating, resonating with our customers, that should ultimately convert to better rate of sale, better, better sales overall.
• 24:16
  Kary Shumway: Interesting.
• 24:17
  Kary Shumway: Yeah, I guess that's this is why I'm not a marketing guy, right?
• 24:20
  Kary Shumway: I didn't know like awareness is sort of a general, but if it's measurable, even if it's in surveys, that's really interesting.
• 24:25
  Kary Shumway: And Evan, going back to what you were saying earlier, when you said sort of top of the funnel, bottom of the funnel, is it just for my own, is top of the funnel awareness and bottom of the funnel is purchases, or is there Yeah, it's an easy example.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like top of funnel is pure awareness.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, someone might see a commercial, become aware of a brand.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: They won't necessarily go out to the store in that moment and go buy the product.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Bottom of funnel, simple example is you see an ad on Instagram, you click on it, go to the website, you purchase it.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's bottom of funnel.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: The purpose of showing you that ad on Instagram is whatever company is showing you that ad, they want you to click on it and to ultimately buy on their website.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we're also um we're a multi-channel company.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: We have we have a e-com as well as wholesale.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so we do a lot of but bottom of funnel advertising with the goal of converting someone ideally immediately to go to our website and hopefully make a purchase.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: If we if a company only does upper funnel, then they might be missing out on opportunities to capture lower hanging fruit and immediate sales.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you only do bottom of funnel, it's a more short-term strategy, and you might miss out on really elevating and building the brand and having a more, I would say, uh substantial relationship with your customer.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, like I said before, it's really important to find that right balance.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: We can't do 100% brand building, we're gonna miss out on opportunities.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: But um for for thinking more long term, we absolutely want to message and talk about Athletic in the right way so that the community out there understands our brand, understands who we are, and obviously that's a big part of the marketing team's job is to go out there and to really um express that voice in the right way.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: And one one point I'd add there too is you know, for us it's it's really like surround sound, right?
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: So Evan mentioned, you know, a billboard or an Instagram ad.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: We need multiple touch points with a consumer before they convert ultimately into a or a potential customer before they convert into a customer of Athletic.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: So they may see a billboard, they may get serve an ad on social media, right?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: We need to hit them multiple times, and then eventually, you know, that we can reasonably assume that once we've hit them a certain amount of times, they will convert.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um and, you know, my role as a you know communications professional is doing as much of that for free, right?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like storytelling through earned media, and that's one of the touch points, right?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's not like I said, it's not any one thing.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that's why we're you know partnered with athletes or we're uh you know striking partnerships with Arsenal or Live Nation, right?
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like these are all ways in which we can engage with the consumer and have these touch points, and then um they become you know fans of the brand.
• 27:26
  Kary Shumway: Nice or uh I think crap breweries in general, maybe they've been reluctant to devote too many dollars to marketing.
• 27:33
  Kary Shumway: Um so Chris, for you, maybe you can do you have an opinion like why do you think that is?
• 27:38
  Kary Shumway: And if if you agree with that, how can breweries maybe shift that mindset?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think that uh historically craft brewers have done a really amazing job of um being scrappy and being very creative.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um for a long time, it was sort of a, you know, if you build it, they will come.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: I those days are long gone at this point.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, we went from a couple of thousand breweries all the way up to 10,000 breweries in like less than a decade.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so there was a lot of enthusiasm for craft beer.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: And as those new uh breweries were opening their doors, um, they really didn't have to do too much uh on the marketing front to earn a customer.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: People were showing up at their tap rooms, trying beers, you know, going out to retailers and and buying four packs and six packs and at one point bombers.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, so I think that it was sort of like an e there was an easy button there for a very long time.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that that um kind of gave the impression that marketing wasn't as important and times have changed.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: Marketing is very important.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, probably one of Craft Beer's biggest mistakes, like you know, painting with a very broad brush here, is that they didn't invest enough um time and money into really great storytelling, really great content creation, really great marketing materials.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think you've kind of seen the impact of that with a lot of breweries uh closing over the years.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um and the really savvy breweries now are starting to recognize this or have already recognized this, and they're reallocating their dollars accordingly.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I also think that um, you know, there was some guidance out there uh over the years that maybe you didn't need to spend as much on marketing.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: And there was some potentially some bad information that got um, you know, communicated to breweries, said, you know, hey, it's only you know 3% or 5% of uh your your budget that you need to spend on marketing, when really that probably should have been higher.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so I think breweries just sort of fell into it and assumed that that was the way that they should operate.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um and yeah, I think a different approach probably would have had different results.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then hey, Chris, let me just just to add on to one thing.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think for for for crap breweries, it also depends on the size and the stage, the stage that they're at.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so a lot of the things that Chris and I are talking about with awareness and and you know bigger media campaigns, uh, we're fortunate to have a great sales team.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're happy with our distribution.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: And by having more distribution, so we're in retail outlets in all 50 states.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we have really good presence both on-premise and off-premise.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so we now are able to invest in some of these awareness campaigns.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously, if we spend money on awareness campaigns and someone becomes aware of us, they need a place to buy us.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're not always aware of our econ website.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, but ideally, if they're at their local retailer, they might find us and remember us from a campaign that that resonated with them.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think um for early stage companies, not just craft breweries, but really any early stage consumer company, there's it's um you want to be careful with not overdoing it with awareness campaigns if you don't have the right distribution.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it could it could, because then in terms of ROI, I I don't think you'll necessarily get the the ROI.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think what Bill and John did a great job of in the beginning of Athletic uh was that they did a ton of grassroots efforts, ton of cans and hands.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like Chris said, they were at all the running events, built up a following in Connecticut, and then when we were available at Whole Foods, people were happy that they tried the beer from Bill or John at a running event, and then, oh great, they're also at Whole Foods, and it kind of made sense with like that trajectory of the company.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then we kind of built up awareness over the years as our distribution improved, and also kind of considered by region, because we do both national and local campaigns in media, and so obviously we do a local campaign.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: We have to be really sure that if we're going to overinvest, and this holds true today, if we're gonna if we're gonna overinvest in a certain city or state, we also have to be really confident that we have the right distribution where where it's worth it to make that investment.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think the investment in marketing really needs to sort of appropriately match the size and ambition of your business.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we all, as Evan said, we are approaching 500,000 barrels this year.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we're available in all 50 states internationally, right?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like our business is operating at a different scale than you know, the local brewer that's just you know focused on his taproom.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I think from from that regard, you know, that tap room-focused brewery is gonna have a much different strategy than we would.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: And there are tactics that you can explore that are more cost effective.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, earned media is is one of those.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: And what it ultimately comes down to is like identifying, you know, what storytelling elements you have to offer and going out and finding creative ways to tell that story.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, it's it's it's hard to kind of paint with a broad brush, as I've said, like, you know, what works for one brewery is not going to work for the next brewery.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but generally speaking, I would say that, you know, craft beer historically didn't invest a ton into marketing.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they probably could have invested a little bit more over the years.
• 33:27
  Kary Shumway: Yeah.
• 33:27
  Kary Shumway: Well, it's interesting too, because as you say, you know, most craft breweries are really small and they are really scrappy.
• 33:33
  Kary Shumway: Uh, but you guys have brought up a lot of things that kind of fit right within that sort of skill set that they have, which is, you know, earned media, I think, is a great, this is a great reminder for people.
• 33:43
  Kary Shumway: It's like, because when I'm talking to brewers, it's usually like, oh, social media, and I gotta do this post and that post.
• 33:48
  Kary Shumway: And it's like, well, why don't you know, earned media is still a thing, you know, get on your local news, get in your local newspaper.
• 33:53
  Kary Shumway: And it's not as sexy, maybe, but it's to your point, it's it doesn't cost you anything, just a little time.
• 33:59
  Kary Shumway: And then this cans and hands.
• 34:00
  Kary Shumway: I like all these little alliterations, cans and hands and liquid the lips and try it before you buy, you know, because it's true.
• 34:06
  Kary Shumway: I mean, it works.
• 34:06
  Kary Shumway: You gotta get get out there.
• 34:08
  Kary Shumway: And that's another thing, too, is like I see a lot of breweries that are like foregoing maybe the um the beer festivals because I don't make any money.
• 34:16
  Kary Shumway: And it's like, well, mindset shift is like it's it's about awareness.
• 34:19
  Kary Shumway: I think to your guys' point, is top of the funnel thinking, um, you know, you're not trying to go lose money, but it's if that's the approach, is that I'm just trying to get the word out there and drive people back to the tap room.
• 34:32
  Kary Shumway: You can maybe take these these uh strategies that you guys are speaking of and more of a national, and then uh really funnel it down to a very local level.
• 34:41
  Kary Shumway: I mean, the same concepts could work, just on a smaller scale, maybe.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I would say one comment there about you mentioned the beer festivals, um, and I neglected to mention this previously, but you know, I think one potential um mistake or oversight or whatever you want to call it, uh, broadly speaking, within craft beer, is that um they didn't do a great enough job of going out and trying to recruit new drinkers to the category.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: They kept remarketing to the same customers, right?
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: So showing up at all the same beer festivals every single year and expecting to reach a new audience, um, probably not the greatest strategy.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think that if you took a look at some of those festival attendees, uh, you know, there would be a high rate of return, right, on those attendees.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so you're not reaching new customers that way.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that was always a big focus for Bill and John was how do we expand craft beer, and in our case, non-alcoholic beer, right?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how do we expand this category to new customers and bring people in, right?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: How do we reach these different audiences?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that's always been, you know, kind of a key element of our marketing is always trying to go beyond the like sort of craft beer circle that has been marketed to historically over you know the last couple of decades and recruit new drinkers to the category and bring people to the beer aisle that weren't shopping the beer aisle before.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, obviously the product has something to do with that, but you know, the way that you message and the places where you show up is a big driver of that.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so I would encourage all craft breweries to, you know, really think deeply about like who their customer is.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: We've done a lot of work trying to understand who our core demographic is and trying to reach that core demo.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, going out and finding people that may not have been drinking craft beer before and bringing them into the fold.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think on the topic of knowing your customer, because Kara, you said before about you know the ROI on going to an event and you know, maybe like losing money on that event.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Great way to know your customer is just to talk to them.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, on the finance team, I don't have the pleasure of going to that many sampling events, but the ones I do get unfortunate enough to go to, um, it's a great way for me to get to get away from Excel, get away from my desk, and actually just talk to people about their athletic journey.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: I have learned so much better at customers by just talking to people or by just bringing athletics to like a party or barbecue and just talking to people there and getting the reaction.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's um I think taking interest in your customer is a seven-day-a-week job.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's fun.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And and I I I I personally like learn a ton, and it's easier for me than to talk to the marketing team because then I better understand what they're striving to do.
• 37:29
  Kary Shumway: So you mentioned Excel, and I I sat up in my chair, and that's good for you for getting away from Excel for a while.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe an hour a day, you know, get take a break, go take a walk, right?
• 37:38
  Kary Shumway: There you go.
• 37:39
  Kary Shumway: So let's let's talk a little bit about more Excel stuff.
• 37:42
  Kary Shumway: So um measurements, key metrics.
• 37:45
  Kary Shumway: You guys have both talked about the importance of measuring and accountability.
• 37:48
  Kary Shumway: So what are some of the we we I'm gonna say marketing metrics, but I just want to hear metrics.
• 37:54
  Kary Shumway: Like we we love KPIs and whatnot.
• 37:57
  Kary Shumway: So Evan, maybe we start with you, like like favorite metrics.
• 38:00
  Kary Shumway: You mentioned uh rate of sale, um, you know, same store, this, that.
• 38:05
  Kary Shumway: Are there any metrics in particular that you know you particularly look to to kind of define or or more important maybe than others?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I mean it's super high level.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're always looking at year over year um and whether we're matching our our year-over-year ambitions.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: That matters for marketing because marketing is a huge catalyst for us meeting our revenue goals.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's important for us to define the year-over-year growth that we're expecting and to work with the marketing team to understand I mean, basically, how much budget um is going to be required, but also what Chris was saying before about you know how we're targeting different types of customers and bringing new people into the category.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: When we're looking at year-over-year growth, we have to consider short-term versus long-term.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we have bigger ambitions for a short-term bump in revenue.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: We might need to target more core customers, core drinkers, as opposed to um new entrants into the category.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: And there's always that right balance.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so the market can best understand what finance is projecting, um, which I think informs somewhat the marketing uh um strategy and allocation of uh spend.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Chris mentioned before awareness, uh rate of sale.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think a big one for us is uh share, how we fall within the category.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're looking at share as a team, finance, sales, marketing, basically the whole company every single month because we need to know how we're comparing within the the greater NA category.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say um especially this year, we're looking at share and also category growth because like I said before, so we have revenue projections, we have um a budget and a goal that uh that finance um delivers to the rest of the team, but we need to more from a macro sense understand um how we're looking in fit in the face of competition and then the category.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, the categories were to slow down.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's harder for the marketing and the sales team to meet a certain goal, and vice versa.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, if the category grows more than we what we thought, we obviously have to the goal might be too might be too soft, right?
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I would say for um for those metrics, I would say yeah, category share within NA.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: And now as we're growing to our level, the fun part now is we we can actually look at our metrics for um share and ranking within total beer.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because now we're becoming one of the um leading beer suppliers, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so that's been a fun metric and tracking to kind of do in the past couple of years.
• 40:35
  Kary Shumway: Great.
• 40:35
  Kary Shumway: And Chris, how about you?
• 40:37
  Kary Shumway: Any favorite uh metrics that you're tracking?
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I love looking at the data.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I love looking at the scam data and seeing where we fall, as as Evan said, you know, what's our share?
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that is something that we as a team we track.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, with so many new category entrants uh over the last couple of years, um, competition has gotten really stiff.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you have a lot of the major brands that can come in and virtually overnight with the flip of a switch, you know, have 70, 80, 90% distribution, right?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, for their new non-alcoholic product.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: And um I think that from an awareness standpoint, that's great for the category, right?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're making non-alcoholic beer uh more available and more aware to customers that were fans of your flagship brand that's now in a non-alcoholic version.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um but what that does from a share perspective is it it changes, you know, what that looks like across all the different brands.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: So some brands are losing share, some brands are gaining share, and some brands are just maintaining share.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, I think Bill has said in the past, uh or this year at least, that like it was a huge win for us to maintain share with all of the new category entrants that have come in.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that was huge.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then next year, you know, our primary goal is regaining share.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that's a big one.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, on the communication side, uh it's it's interesting.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there are a lot of things we could look at.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's uh the the data is not great, right?
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_02: The inputs that I get are not great.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: I have tools that I can use to measure, you know, um like how many impressions we're getting, um, what the advertising value of those impressions are.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um at the end of the day, you know, it's we're only as good as like what the tools are sort of feeding us.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so um I can see that a website gets X amount of visits per month, you know, monthly visits.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: I know that I'm not getting 100% of those on the article that I landed.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's probably less than 1% of those, but we do still track what those impressions are.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that's that's an important measurement tool for us on the communication side.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, at one point in time we were looking at advertising value, and I've decided ultimately that it's just um really too imperfect to be worthwhile to track.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, share of voice is a big one, both for like social media and earned media.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we you know develop a competitive set and we look at what our share of voice is relative to those other competitors.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um those are the big ones, I would say, um, at least for me on the communication side.
• 43:30
  Kary Shumway: Nice.
• 43:31
  Kary Shumway: So as we kind of wrap up, uh I want to do the old crystal ball question.
• 43:35
  Kary Shumway: And this is a two-parter for you guys, and and Evan, I'll start with you.
• 43:38
  Kary Shumway: But the crystal ball is like, where do you see the industry headed?
• 43:42
  Kary Shumway: And you can take that, you know, that could be bevelk, that could be beer, that could be non-alk.
• 43:46
  Kary Shumway: So the industry global beverages where it's a lot of, I guess I would say, turmoil right now.
• 43:51
  Kary Shumway: Where do you see it headed?
• 43:52
  Kary Shumway: And then part two to that is what's what do you see next for for athletic?
• 43:56
  Kary Shumway: What's next for you guys?
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: I would say for beer in general, beer is a key um item, whether alcoholic or non-alcoholic, for being out there in the world, socializing.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's around positive times, hanging out with friends, going to a barbecue, um, celebrating.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that people want that more than ever.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's not going to slow down.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: And um we want to be there for those occasions.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I see um NA specifically being a really big driver of that.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, to allow everyone to do what they love, whether it's socializing or hiking, being active, um, sharing a meal with someone.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, people want that connection more than ever.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I think I think NA will continue to grow because it's very directly uh supportive of that.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you can be your best self, be your best self, whether it's you know performance-related hiking, new uh parenting, being a great professional and doing a great, great job at work.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think um that's why that's a big reason why NA has been growing.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right now it's about 1.7% of beer.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we see that we see it, we see a world well north of that percentage uh based on the data that we look at in other countries where some of them are 10% plus of total beer.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we also look at retailer data um for leading retailers within the US, um a lot of them too are starting to see their NAS percentage of total beer well north too of the one the 1.7 percent.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we're very um um excited for the category.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're excited for also just um more more of a spotlight on the category.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's been getting a lot of traction um in the greater beer community.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um that includes new brands um doing new things.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I think for ourselves, uh we're as excited as ever.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're we're we're happy to be a leader in the category.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um I would say we're we're maintaining some nice excitement by continuing to innovate and bring out new flavors and offerings to our customers.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said before, there's still a ton of people who are not drinking athletic.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we're excited to invite new people to the category and to our company.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we're just excited to yeah, be a part of it all.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a lot of fun.
• 46:16
  Kary Shumway: Thanks, Evan.
• 46:17
  Kary Shumway: And Chris, for you, you know, state of the industry, what you're seeing, and what's what's next athletic-wise.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I would echo a lot of what Evan said.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think um oftentimes the headlines are probably uh a little bit worse than maybe what's actually happening uh out in the world.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I think it's pretty hard to ignore that, you know, things like domestic shipments are down.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, we're seeing just overall decline in in the beer category.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_02: Non-alcoholic beer has been basically the only bright spot as far as I can see in the scan data.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so, you know, I think from where we sit, that's a, you know, obviously a huge positive that non-alcoholic beer is growing, but we we do wish that the category, you know, could find a nice balance and return to growth overall because that's ultimately the best for the category.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's best for our partners, it's best for our business too.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: We believe very strongly in moderation.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um we think that that is the trend.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_02: We don't think that this is a sobriety trend.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's it's more, you know, there's plenty of data out there to suggest that you know, moderation is what's driving non-alcoholic beer growth right now.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_02: 93% of consumers are buying both alcoholic beer and non-alcoholic beer, you know, at the same time.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, 80% of our customers still drink alcohol.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there was some Gallup polling earlier this year that said, you know, uh that uh drinking hit hit its lowest point in, I don't know, multiple decades.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: So 54% of Americans um say they drink alcohol, which is the lowest it's ever been.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think 53% of Americans are saying that uh, you know, they think one or two drinks every single day is bad for their health.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I don't think that that means that they're giving up alcohol altogether.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think that that means that they're just kind of reassessing their relationship with alcohol, uh, putting in non-alcoholic beer throughout the week and finding occasions for non-alcoholic beverages.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um so overall, I think, you know, there's still a lot of positive things to look at uh in the years ahead.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I think the category probably, you know, brands in the category, alcoholic brands, non-alcoholic brands, just need to, you know, to continue to invest in their story and their um, you know, their their what they're telling consumers.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think the category overall will get back to growth.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, Bill has been very bullish on the projections for non-alcoholic beer.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think he said he thinks it can be, you know, 20% of beer sales at some point in the future.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that remains to be seen, but there are some retailers where that's already happening.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: So at the very tip of the spear, um, there are you know leading indicators that uh non-alcoholic beer could be a very sizable portion of the category in the future.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're excited about that.
• 49:19
  Kary Shumway: Big things to come, guys.
• 49:20
  Kary Shumway: It's awesome.
• 49:21
  Kary Shumway: Well, thanks so much for your time, all the information today.
• 49:24
  Kary Shumway: What's if somebody wants to learn more about athletic, maybe connect with you guys, what's the best way for them to do that?
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and the easiest way is we have a website uh that has, like I said before, 50 plus beers, athleticbrewing.com.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we'll have some uh promos starting for uh dry January very soon.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: And um, like I said before, too, we're in major retailers across the the US, 50 states, like Chris said also, Canada and the UK, and parts of parts of the EU.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um Whole Foods, Target, Kroger, Walmart, Costco.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: I can keep going.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but just I would say just give us a try.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or find us an event, get a get a get a free can on the house.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, just uh just give us a shot, I would say.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, athleticbrewing.com.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh as Evan said, we do about 50 different beers on there annually at any given time.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_02: We probably have around a dozen or so.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: I know you can find Evan on LinkedIn, shoot us a message.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_02: We're always happy to engage with folks and share what we know.
• 50:31
  Kary Shumway: Thank you for listening to the Kraft Brewery Financial Training Podcast, where we combine beer and numbers so that you can improve financial results in your brewery.
• 50:40
  Kary Shumway: For more resources, tools, guides, and online courses, visit Craft Brewery Financial Training dot com.
• 50:47
  Kary Shumway: And don't forget to sign up for the world famous Kraft Brewery Financial Training newsletter.
• 50:52
  Kary Shumway: Until next time, get out there and improve financial results in your brewery today.