After interviewing 1,000 CEOs, I quickly get a sense when a CEO has a unique brand that can potentially transform an entire industry. After speaking with Adam von Gootkin, I witnessed a true beverage visionary, who had a unique formula to reinvent an industry that is almost 500 years old. Below are his insights which can be a foundation for any entrepreneur or CEO seeking radical innovation and success.
Robert Reiss: What does it mean to be a CEO in today’s world and how does this reflect in the products you create?
Adam von Gootkin: “We exist in a world of "canned fruit". Just as canned fruit appears to be a healthy fruit option, it’s full of sugar, preservatives, corn syrup and generally lack any nutrition; too many companies are replicating authenticity in ways that hurts the consumer, our environment, and lacks a genuine commitment to consumers. As business builders we must be committed to increasing beauty around the world, not finding clever cheap ways to eliminate it. The CEO Entrepreneur today is chiefly in the business of software coding the human reality. Everything we buy, consume, construct, and use was developed by an entrepreneur with a vision and brought to market by effective CEO’s and their teams. My message to CEOs, is one of sticking unabashedly towards quality authentic products that are exactly what we say there are. This is the foundation of our creation of Highclere Castle Gin, building a brand with responsible entrepreneurship. If we are to be prosperous in the future, I would urge everyone to give some thought as to how they can integrate an authentic approach to every element of their business.”
Highclere Castle Spirits award winning gin
Reiss: What is your philosophy for building a trusted spirit brand?
von Gootkin: “To build a trusted brand, we must focus on 5 key strategies. 1. Educate your team on the philosophy of the business. 2. Obsess over the customer, 3. never sacrifice integrity, 4. develop an authentic genuine product, and 5. practice responsible entrepreneurship. The momentum around our philosophy was clear in creating a successful global brand that has a deep level of heritage, pedigree, and authenticity with ingredients sourced from a very special and sustainably managed location, i.e. the Highclere Castle Estate. I believe spirit brands are best served when they have a physical home, a terroir, ultimately a direct link to the soul and the people that manifest the brand.
Products are what people buy for a function. Brands are what people invest in with their emotion. Without branding, you’re just a tool easily replaced by other similar tools. To entrench yourself in an industry, you must appeal more to the experience of the consumer and to the real solution of their problem on an almost psychological level. If this is achieved successfully, competition will come and go, global challenges may face us, but your brand will still exist because it’s in demand by consumers on an almost metaphysical plane. Building a brand successfully increases the inherent value of a business as not only are you solving some sort of real-world problem but you’re guiding consumers on an emotional journey that is very real and won’t easily be forgotten — and those are the brands that change the world and resonate satisfaction at point of purchase…those are often the brands with the highest valuations.”
Reiss: How would you define your branding strategy and messaging?
von Gootkin: “We were forced during the Covid pandemic to take a hard look at our brand and how we were going to define ourselves and succeed in an environment of quarantine and with the hospitality industry shutdown. Our branding is a rather complex story involving history and many moving parts. Highclere is a global brand, from one of the most famous castles in the world. Our challenge was to distill (no pun intended) out the core essence of a magical story into messaging and imagery that would cause a consumer to burn a minimal number of calories when attempting to “get” our brand. I think this is rather well expressed on our new simple and exceedingly clean website, and trickles down into our PR messaging, point of sale materials and everything else tactical that we do in the streets. Our brand is born from a castle, renowned for its parties, acclaimed for its taste. Everything circles around these three pillars. In other words, Highclere Castle Gin is prestigious, is fun, and is being validated by experts as the best tasting gin in the world.”
Reiss: How do you use creative marketing to build a successful brand?
von Gookin: “I really believe that most traditional advertising is a tax you pay for not being creative. We have a focused social media and earned PR strategy that is more cost effective and allows us to engage with and track our growing customer base. One example of using this well was upon the initial Covid lockdown where we created live cocktail parties hosted by Lord & Lady Carnarvon from Highclere Castle on our social media channels drawing millions of viewers from around the world at no cost in parallel with launching our e-commerce platform delivering our product to homes in 30 countries. The very nature of Highclere Castle along with its connection to Downton Abbey, draws consistent press interest from around the world allowing us to tell our brand story in meaningful and compelling ways that an advertisement will never accomplish.
This year we are quite fortunate to be faced with many fantastic opportunities and partnerships. To fuel our growth and expansion into the finest hotels, restaurants, and clubs around the world, we made a strategic marketing pivot. The company launched an investment financing round via a crowdfund that is open to the public whereby we are marketing the opportunity to our social media followers, customers, fans, and general independent investors. The fund successfully raised over $500,000 in the first few weeks and will be open through the fall of 2022 on Wefunder.com. The company expects to reach the goal of $5 million raised. This has been an amazing way for customers and fans to become shareholders in the company where they benefit from the brands growth and success while generating lifetime brand ambassadors around the world.”
