Part of the fun of my very occasional tequila drinking experience in college was joining the guys to really... shall we say, "celebrate," before I went back to my usual boring beer. Even though I get a headache just typing this post about tequila now, it was very interesting to ponder a recent move by In The Black Beverage Corp (ITBBC) as reported by Sarah Mahoney for MediaPost.


The beverage brand is newly focusing on the women's market and their first step... to make the bottle sexy.
Hmmm. Check out this paragraph from Mahoney's piece for more:

"Tequila has always been marketed as this bastion of maleness," says Bruce Rekant, president of ITBBC. "But our research found that 49% of tequila drinkers are women, who are totally ignored by tequila marketers." So inocente, sold in a "sexy bottle that looks like a vase," will be marketed like an upscale fashion or fragrance brand, he says, using out-of-home ads located outside strategic stores, such as Dolce & Gabbana.

Perhaps most casual tequila drinkers are younger than 30 and living the urban, bar-going lifestyle, so the sexy approach may be fun and (maybe) appeal more to women, for a while... But, more marketing substance will be necessary if the idea is for tequila to become the new vodka, as the article mentions. And, whose idea of "sexy" is a bottle shaped like a flower vase anyway?
But, I digress...
What if tequila drinkers like the edginess of the experience and respond to the perhaps more testosterone-laden concept of imbibing it (aka doing shots)? If you change the bottle, will guys even touch it with a ten-foot pole? If guys stay away, will women order tequila (in shots or otherwise) on their own? I wonder.
In the short run, ITBBC's new approach makes for a clever, press-worthy, fun promotion. But, in the long run, do alcoholic beverage brands gain or lose by taking an overtly women-specific approach, or could the brand be alienating their existing male customers in the process?
The sexy bottle may be an overly short-run, "pink" effort for the time/money ITBBC will put into promoting their tequila. What would happen if beverage companies like their's did other, more long-term perspective things, like re-design the packaging or improve the experience/perception with ALL their customers in mind?
Or, as one who knows already pointed out: 49% of tequila drinkers are already women. Why make a huge marketing shift in order to reach people who seem to like you just the way you are?