It might seem like attaching a celebrity to a brand will make for boffo sales, but sometimes it’s like asking a Hollywood star to work for scale on an indie release: About 80% of shoppers cannot match celebrities to the brands they own, according to a recent report from Numerator, a retail data provider. That hasn’t yet slowed down the golden age of celebrity spirits, but was it ever really here? We asked 3 Tier Beverages to pull up some data and measure how celeb-backed brands are faring against each other, and compared to their civilian counterparts.
Before we dig in, I’d like to note that despite living in my L.A. bubble, Numerator’s study was contextualized for me by my elderly neighbor who, after I explained that the Sprinter RTDs accidentally delivered to her door were Kylie Jenner’s brand, asked, “is that an Olympian?” (I am still chuckling.)
Anyway, Kyle Fitzpatrick, senior director of emerging CPG brands at Numerator, wasn’t surprised by the study, and wasn’t afraid to extend outside the bubble.
“If you think about the vast range of people that are shopping in retail stores,” he said, “It's the full population of the U.S.”
But retailers still know, and to some extent favor, those celebrity brands in a head-to-head with, say, your brand.
“If I have two identical brands and one of them has a celebrity or an influencer and the other one doesn't, the one with the celebrity and influencer does get some preference,” said Andrea Starr, senior director of merchandising for beer, ready-to-drink, and non-alc at Total Wine & More.
How much of a preference, however, still depends on the tier of celebrity, their demographic and geographic hold, as well as the particular school of celebrity business model – of which there are all kinds now: the influencer incubator model; the celeb who lived and breathed it (Casamigos); the celeb that bought in and went hard (Aviation); and the brand that gave up some equity and got a celeb to sign a service agreement to show up at tastings and promote the brand. (That last model, at least according to one advisor I spoke to, isn’t recommended these days for young brands, as consumers are getting real savvy about what’s authentic.)
But what do the numbers say? 3 Tier compiled NIQ data on 92 celebrity brand families, together down -3.5% in sales (to $922 million) and up 16.2% in volume over the last 52 weeks off premise. Here are the top takeaways:
There aren’t too many surprises on the list of top ten celebrity brands in dollar sales, which includes the O.G.s and strategic-owned, but actor Miles Teller’s Long Drink tops the list of growth brands, with VMC (fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez) and Delola (J-Lo) also in the top five. As we know, RTDs are the fastest growing spirits format, and the influencers are certainly doing their influencing thing in that category:
