Lagunitas’ sales and marketing teams have undergone an overhaul in the last month.
Sales chief Tony Amaral departed for Firestone Walker earlier this month, and chief marketing officer Paige Guzman resigned from the company a few weeks ago.
Lagunitas CEO Dennis Peek has stepped in as interim sales chief in place of Amaral, as a search continues for his replacement. The Heineken-owned, Petaluma, California-based craft brewery also announced the appointment of Hannah Dray as interim CMO last week.
In a conversation with Brewbound, Dray said a “big focus” for her is “bringing some structure and consistency to everything that we do.” Over the next six months, Lagunitas will undergo a “marketing transformation” that zeroes in on three key pillars.
- Bringing Lagunitas’ brand identity to life;
- Fixing its basics to win at point of sale;
- And innovating in ways that attract younger legal-drinking-age consumers.
Part of that strategy includes being irreverent and disruptive again, Dray said.
Bringing the Brand Identity to Life
Lagunitas’ volume has shed 212,500 barrels over the last three years, declining in three consecutive years (-11% in 2020, -5% in 2021 and -4% in 2022) to 860,000 barrels in 2022, according to the Brewers Association. The brand was last over the 1 million barrel mark in 2019.
Year-to-date through June 18, Lagunitas’ dollar sales (-11.8%) and volume (-15.3%) are both down double digits in off-premise retailers tracked by market research firm Circana. Lagunitas’ dollar share of beer has also declined -0.06%, to 0.35%.
The brand’s trends have improved slightly over the last four weeks, down -8.6% in dollars and -10.6% in volume, per Circana.
Dray is going back to the future to understand the brand personality and breathe new life into the Lagunitas brand. The marketing team needs to examine “how we can get back to some of that irreverent and disruptive behavior that we have become known and loved for,” she said. “I think it’s fair to say we’ve potentially lost a little bit of that.”
Dray believes the brand needs to consider its personality and how it is executed “across every single touch point.” The foundation of that work was already laid with a brand refresh.
“From PR stunts to how we name our beers through to how we show up at our taprooms, for me, it’s about executing our brand personality and our brand identity consistently across every single touch point,” Dray said.
Asked what Lagunitas’ brand identity is at this point in its 30-year history, Dray said “that’s the piece that we need to work through.”
“We will look back at what has worked for us previously, what are the fundamental elements that consumers were really drawn to that resonated with them, and how do we bring that to life in today’s world and where we stand today,” she explained. “Really, it’s about how do we bring back some of that disruptiveness and irreverence. We’ve maybe become a little bit safe in what we’ve been doing.”
Beer marketing in 2023 has been the subject of national headlines due to the backlash against Bud Light following Anheuser-Busch InBev’s social media promotion with Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender woman. Asked about the challenges of marketing in a business with heightened scrutiny, Dray said brands need to keep two fundamental elements in mind: 1) truly understanding your consumer, who they are and what resonates with them, and 2) being “truly authentic to your brand.”
“That’s why, for me, looking back at where we’ve come from is super important,” she said. “Because we do have a well-established consumer base that already knows us and loves us for our IPA brand. We want to make sure that we continue to be true and authentic to who they knew us as and who we were, but also being relevant to the new consumer as well.”
Innovation Will Focus on Growing in IPA and Non-Alc
Lagunitas’ innovation will remain focused on growing within the IPA category and reaffirming itself “as a core IPA brand,” Dray said. Lagunitas IPA and Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ gives the company a strong base with the No. 2 and No. 3 IPA brands within their respective categories.
The strategy from there is focused on leveraging non-alcoholic, beyond beer and limited-edition releases to attract new consumers, Dray said. Taprooms will also play a role as a test-and-learn “playground.”
Maximus IPA, Lagunitas’ imperial IPA single-serve convenience and 12-pack play, and Hoppy Refresher non-alcoholic hop waters are two growth brands Lagunitas plans to build around, Dray said.
Hoppy Refresher, Island Beats tropical IPA and Tiki Fusion Zombie IPA are three brands that are winning with consumers, she said. Island Beats is the No. 1 tropical IPA and Tiki has scored “some early wins.”
Hoppy Refresher is also attracting younger consumers and female consumers due to its versatility as a night extender, a mixer and a non-alc product. With the focus on Hoppy Refresher as Lagunitas’ beyond beer bet, the company isn’t prioritizing Disorderly Teahouse, the sparkling hard tea brand it launched in early 2022.
“Within Hoppy Refresher, we’re seeing that we’ve got 30% higher volume than any of our competitors in that market and three times the distribution,” she said. “So right now we’re very much focused on Hoppy Refresher.”
Variety packs are also a big part of Lagunitas forward-looking strategy, with the company holding the top-selling variety pack year-to-date, Dray said, adding that Lagunitas is “driving 70% of the growth for craft variety packs.”
For the back half of 2023, Lagunitas launched a $1 million IPA Day campaign earlier this month focused on social platforms in key markets such as California and Illinois and additional markets in the Sunbelt.