Tequila is the Fastest Growing Spirit: Lisa Barlow

Bloomberg

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00:00Before we toast to the weekend, I want to bring you a conversation that I had and I had alone

00:04with Lisa Barlow. She's the founder of Vida Tequila. She's also, of course, a real housewife

00:09of Salt Lake City. And she spoke about working in the spirits industry for almost 20 years. And now

00:15she's expanding her liquor portfolio. And she talked about her role on Real Housewives and

00:21how that's helped her grow her business. Take a listen. So we started in 2003, working on the

00:27brand, launched in 2007 at the Sundance Film Festival. We did 10 days of amazing parties.

00:34And we've been doing it ever since. I mean, your background is in planning and marketing. And I'm

00:39curious. I mean, you talk about how tequila was kind of looked down on. It was kind of just, you know,

00:43the drink, you know, you had in college. And once you grew up, you kind of evolved. But we've seen

00:49tequila now have this sort of renaissance as being something that's a little more elevated, a little

00:53bit more sophisticated. That had to be a big part of that was certainly marketing. And I'm

00:57curious as to what approach you took with Vita in doing that.

01:00That's a great question. So I knew we couldn't compete with billion dollar brands. So we had

01:06to be creative on our approach to market. So with my marketing background and my drive,

01:11I created my own marketing company to do experiential marketing events. I partnered in film. I have a lot

01:17of clients in film and TV. And I was launching TV shows, movies, and making sure my brand was front

01:24and center at all of those events. So it gives you a chance to create a trial of the brand,

01:30brand awareness, and really marketing dollars. And, you know, competing against billion dollar

01:35brands where when we launched, one of the very popular brands was spending 25 million on print

01:40advertising alone. I knew I had to be creative, clever, and take a unique approach to market.

01:46It's one thing to sort of shoot through and sort of, you know, create some buzz for yourself.

01:50But to maintain that over, what is it, 18, almost 20 years now. How do you do that? Because, I mean,

01:56there are so many tequila brands out there now, a lot of them also held by celebrities. So how do

02:00you sort of keep awareness about what you're doing? I think the thing is you have to be constantly in

02:05front of the consumer, know your audience, know how to market to your audience, pick the right

02:10events, pick the right charities, be in the right places. I have a great Rolodex and I've earned that

02:15over years. And because of that, I've been able to have my brand at so many impactful,

02:22meaningful events. And now with Housewives, I think it's like, you know, I'm the celebrity now.

02:27I've always been on the back side of everything. And now I'm, you know, front and center with the

02:32brand. And I think that really helps too. But I have the street cred with true tequila fans.

02:38You got the Andy Cohen cred too right now. I got the Andy Cohen cred. I assume that's helped as

02:42well, right? In terms of visibility for you? For visibility, I think it's been great.

02:46What do you want to do like going forward? I mean, you have your brands, you have the actual

02:51umbrella company above it. Is the idea to expand into other things or just to push deeper into what

02:56you're already doing? You know, expanding is always the goal. So we also have a hard seltzer named

03:01Blue Jay Hard Seltzer. We sell primarily in Utah right now, testing the market to see like if it has legs,

03:07how well we'll do. Now forgive me if this is an ignorant question, but you're selling hard seltzer

03:11in Utah. That's a business model? That's a business model. You know, Utah is high up on the drinking

03:17and innovative for drinks, beverage, the hospitality industry. So we're testing that market right now.

03:23And based on how well it does in Utah, we'll take it to other markets. It's an inspired drink off of

03:29Vita. It doesn't have any tequila in it. It's a sugar beet based product. Super delicious,

03:35only 5% for those that are like sober curious or, you know, after, you know, like millennials

03:41put together this whole like sober movement and sober curious moment. So we've like really tapped

03:47into that by having a lower alcohol proof product. Um, and then, you know, having our tequila brand,

03:53which is kind of the inspiration for the hard seltzer too. I do want to ask how you utilize

03:58social media, particularly at a time when social media is becoming a little bit more fractured.

04:01There's a lot of questions as to whether it still has that same power to really a launch

04:06and sustain brands that it did in the past. You know, I don't think social media is going

04:10away anytime soon, but it doesn't have the same power that it did five years ago, even three years

04:14ago. So I think one thing that we did is we opened a Vita tequila lounge in hotspot park city where I

04:21can be there to like customer face fan face, give them a trial of our tequila, like, you know,

04:27sell them a trial of tequila in Utah. You can't give away drinks, but, um, you know, to really

04:32encourage like, Hey, this is like a trial of the brand. You can taste it with me. You can be here

04:37with me. You can pair it with me. And, um, that's been really, really helpful. I love being in our lounge

04:43and being able to meet fans and also meet consumers that really love tequila, which is the fastest

04:48growing spirit category right now. Like, I mean, the, the increase in year over year growth

04:54is unbelievable.

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