Thirsty Thursday: Premium On-Premise Alcohol Product Sampling

This is a best practice I used to do full-time for Diageo in Toronto. You provide me a sampling budget to be spent buying full-size drinks for people in bars, restaurants, cafes, and other hospitality venues, and then I do the actual in-person work of getting those drinks in hands.

How It Works:
The way it works is that I'll be at the bar solo, strike up a friendly conversation with the customers who are in your target demo, and offer to buy them a round of drinks on behalf of your brand. I'm intentionally not in any branded attire (no uniform to worry about), and I don't have any signage or sampling set up. The objective it so make each group getting drinks feel like this is not something that happens to just everyone, and is instead a special interaction with an off-duty brand rep deciding to use their corporate expense account to make these strangers night. 

Who It's For: 

• Luxury brands too elevated for liquor store samplings
• New product launches wanting to quickly drive trial
  

Reasons to Believe: 

• Guarantees the owner will see sales of your product on their monthly report
• Bartenders love you for supporting them during slow periods
• Legally compliant way to support bars, instead of illegal case rates
  

Limits: This is priced as a Vancouver based service.