Why Spirits Awards Matter and How to Make Them Count

Winning the right award? Absolutely worth it. Not telling a meaningful story with it? Then why bother entering in the first place? Tash breaks it down with Ben Leggett of Elemental Distillers.

Yet another gold sticker or social media badge? The plethora of spirits awards can feel like a dizzying array of clinking glasses and accolades. But let’s take a minute to separate the business from the bouquets.

Why Awards Matter: Beyond the Bling

While a shiny sticker on your bottle can grab attention, the true value of awards lies deeper and is dependent on which voices your consumers are listening too. The old adage that “stickers sell” is a hangover from a print-driven culture of wine selling — remember the times when the only wine publications were annual guides or monthly glossy magazines? A time before email or social traffic, when consumers really did rely on those shelf-talkers and stickers to help them make purchasing choices. I remember spending Sundays labelling wine bottles with Cuisine stickers and guillotining Michael Cooper reviews onto shelf-talkers in the warehouse at Dad’s wine distribution business.

But here’s the thing: stickers do work, both anecdotally and in practice.

• First, for consumers, awards can act as a trusted guide. Faced with a crowded shelf of unfamiliar brands, a medal from a trustworthy platform can instill confidence and nudge them towards your product.
  

  Frequent gold medal flier Ben Leggett of Elemental Distillers offered his thoughts when we posed the question and identified that while gold still sells with his customers, they often find the myriad of other awards on the bottle confusing.

  
  ”Gold sells. For consumers, Double Golds are just confusing as are Best In Categories medals. Often colours on the medal are changed to differentiate (NZ Spirit Awards, pay attention!) while consumers don’t identify that a deep purple is worth more in quality than a gold. At the Auckland Gin Fest this year we had many customers state “but doesn’t everyone have a gold medal these days” which is hard to argue with. Another issue to explore, is it too easy to get a Gold?”
  
  Take it easy, Ben - we’ll ask the tough questions! But yes.