Marketing in the Bar World.
Is it showing off? Is it business? Is it killing the art of the bartender?
The job is the bartender used to be so simple - set up the bar, serve guests & clean up! Straight forward, somewhat dirty work but necessary for society to function. Yet in modern times, the internet & brand money as well as the new golden age of bartending we live in now means that the profession like many others has been required to change. It’s not just enough to be able to make delicious drinks, work fast & have a pleasant demeanour anymore. You’re expected to be media trained, have a quality social media account & know enough corporate office language to navigate the negotiations of ‘big bartender business’ in order to be ‘successful’. Many bartenders around the world denounce this movement & criticize the new generation for the amount of time spent on Instagram or press releases as they feel it takes away from the ‘true soul of bartending’. They wish to go back to the old days of Jerry Thomas & Ada Coleman.
For those of you who are are agreeing with the last statement I have bad news for you. Stop reading the rest of this article because I’m about to kill all your mixology heroes. All of them have been utilising marketing to create a name for themselves way before Bill Gates & the tech community even imagined the internet.
Lets take mixology poster boy Jerry Thomas. When he moved to New Orleans he made the claim to have won hundreds of cocktail competitions & remained undefeated in order to secure work in a local hotel. He did ‘guest bartending’ shows while working in Virginia, San Francisco & New York where he would use ‘flashy ways of cocktail mixing often juggling cups, mixers & glasses’ I don’t know how you read that but I read ‘flair bartending’. Then we have the likes of Ada Coleman, the first female Head Bartender of the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel, a global first of its kind...or was it? There was already a female bartender working at the Savoy, a lady named Ruth Burgess, the difference between the two was one focused on the work & the other would liaise with journalists, writers & actors of the time. We’ve all heard of the Hanky Panky & Ada Coleman story & yet none of you have heard about Ruth Burgess. Marketing.
Welcome to the Internet
Everyone & everything, all of the time!
So what now? Your heroes are dead, the world you believe in destroyed & the ‘soul of bartending’ tainted by the devil that is the internet. You’re ready to give in to temptation & post content, photos & videos. You’re reading articles online, tutorials on how to use your camera better, spending hours obsessing over the ‘perfect’ photo or pose. Where are the likes? Where’s the engagement? Is it all bullshit?
Absolutely not. In fact social media & the internet is likely to be the ONLY thing that will RAISE the status of the bartender to being a respected part of society again. Let me explain...
120 years ago if you wanted to meet friends, socialise & share your stories aka use WhatsApp or Instagram you had to go to a bar. The admin of this bar was the saloon keeper or owner or bartender. So in other words the admins of the local ‘internet’ was the bartender & as a result as important part of society. Now we have lived through the age of shameless influencers with 6 pack abs selling us useless products they will never use. We use instagram for more than just pictures of our lunch, there’s journalists, independent media, mechanics & even chiropractors on YouTube! Have you ever wanted to see someone get their back cracked? Millions of views...
The people are getting better at paying attention to WHO they get their information from. So who is dominating the cocktails & mixed drinks space? Where are the bartenders? Why aren’t we the admins of OUR space? Yet we complain about Tipsy Bartender or Licensed to Distill...
Money makes the world go around!
The world go around, the world go around...
Most bartenders get paid the lower end of society’s wages & that is universal all around the world. There is no heaven for bartending where you get paid crazy wages without having a high cost of living. Usually any sort of additional work that does pay well is based on brand money which many bartenders see as ‘selling out’. We see corporate gigs as giving in to the ‘big evil’ in order to have nice things in life. What if that is also absolute crap?
In modern times most of the people working of the big brands interacting with bartenders are actually ex-bartenders or people who has experience in the alcohol industry. They ‘know’ things & drink too. As a result brand jobs are getting increasingly interesting & working with brands its getting both easier & more exciting, unfortunately, with better opportunities comes bigger competition! This competition has nothing to do with your bartending skills or your version of the Paloma. This competition is all about how much good at ‘communication’ you are. If only bartenders didn’t speak 6-8 hours a day speaking to people working on their ability to speak...
The key thing with marketing & communication is understanding yourself first. You know yourself better than anyone else in the world - except Google, Facebook & your mother! The key to quality communication is correctly showing who you are to your target audience. That is marketing. Marketing is the ability to translate who you are correctly. Thats it.
Most brand jobs are decided through connections but the few that aren’t are chosen through social media or press. If your name pop-ups anywhere the person with the money will search Instagram first & the last 9 posts of your feed will be the deciding factor if they hire you or not. This is the reality. They can see your face in the profile? No job. They see you being a drunk moron online? No job. They see you’ve only ever posted 5 photos & aren’t actively using social media? No job. This is the new reality of a bartender in the modern world. Why would the pick you over any other person going for the same interview? People eat with their eyes & your Instagram is the plate.
Danil Nevsky
For Bar Magazine Slovakia
indiebartender.com
