When Life Gives You Limes, Personalize It and Add Something Original This Time
Alrighty, so this is something different. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade… right? The age old saying encourages creativity and more prominently, originality. The same can be applied to brand marketing.
While researching competitors to our now well known Aperol Spritz cocktail previously spoken about in other blogs, I found a beverage by the company Bathtub Gin entitled the Persian Lime & Orange Blossom drink. This is the fragrance notes description their website gives on the drink: “A zealously zesty, vibrantly floral offering from Bathtub Gin. This edition sees the delicious cold-compounded spirit infused with the elegant flavours of Persian lime and orange blossom. This dry and unsweetened expression is awesomely aromatic, with an abundance of zesty lime peel and citrus oil bolstering the bold juniper and gentle spices at its core. Works a treat in a G&T, and shines mixed with bitter lemon.” — MasterofMalt.com
From what I understand, this is a citrus-based floral drink from the orange blossom ingredient with a twang from the lime. I could imagine this drink being slightly spicy.
As a competitor, this UK brand differentiates itself though a new innovation on social: It’s personalization. What I see makes or break an alcohol beverages social media presence is not necessarily its long captions or reels, but their attention to detail and visually aesthetic images. While other brands, Aperol included, use reposted images from UGC (user-generated content) over Instagram and Facebook (Meta platforms) to their main page, Bathtub gin has an original style that lures a consumer to try their product. I would describe their creative as vintage, organic, natural and Gen Z cottage-core style. While I mention Gen Z it is also attractive to Millenials and older age demographics through the nature component integrated to their images with leaves present on woody surfaces. Take a look.
Personalization is important when it comes to branding in order to communicate the kind of consumer the brand subtly but inherently wants.
- How are they using it? By taking original photos with a high quality camera and artistic placement, visuals can go a long way for people who want to try out a new kind of gin, or in the case the Persian Lime & Orange Blossom drink.
- What intrigued you about how this brand is using this? As stated before, most beverage brand community managers who repost content are lazy and take other regional pages content and repost it on their own. By creating a unique feed, one can position this brand as original and credible. It almost gives a sense of authenticity and that the brand does its own work!
- How did it help or not help them achieve their marketing objectives? A good social image aesthetic also helps brand reputation. This in turn would help the brand accomplish their marketing objective of more conversions on their pages, whether that is simply more CTR, impressions, or even purchases.
- Do you think this trend will fade or is it here to stay? With more camera technology and growing editing tools + brand competition, original content photography is here to stay as people like to see something that is authentic in spirit (no pun-intended). The data behind this is the statistic that 72% of people say they will choose a humorous brand over the competition, and 75% would follow a humorous brand on social media. In addition, brands should rely more on original content, as opposed to User Generated Content (UGC) on Instagram, as they have changed the algorithm to favor original content. Content should be thoughtfully created, but keep in mind consumers are craving authentic and even funny content from brands.
All in all, personalization is a unique factor that can make brand awareness for your company, product, or service expand exponentially, from the moon and back! Leveraging a brand’s social media can help the cause and actually drive more sales.
My thinking for all brands? Yes while UGC is a good interactive element, brands should focus on personalization over generic creative content any day.
While you might not see results immediately with original content, it will help in the long run. As the great Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”
And that can be implied to personalizing brand marketing too.
Thanks for joining me on this journey of twelve blog posts. A special thanks to Professor Joanne Tombrakos for the guidance, prompts, and general wisdom gained in the digital marketing class this semester!
Logging off.
Yours Sincerely,
Nikhita (Niki) A.
