Her Voice Blog

Thanksgiving is this week and the rest of the holidays are right on its heels. This time of year things get a bit more festive and this includes imbibing in more celebratory beverages. We’ve noticed an interesting conversation taking place concerning women and alcohol, specifically whiskey and because we pride ourselves in being a public relations agency specialized in reaching female consumers, we wanted to throw in our 2 cents here on our blog.

In general, women make 60-70% of alcohol purchasing decisions, but since women make 85% of all household purchasing decisions, this doesn’t surprise us at all. What is a bit surprising is how the number of women drinking beverages that were typically viewed as ‘men’s drinks’ has increased.

Since the advent of fruity cocktails with umbrellas and other doo-dads on the rim, women who want to enjoy a drink have pretty much been assigned these types of beverages as what is acceptable for them. Only recently has wine found its place in popular culture as something women sit around and enjoy together while dishing about their husbands or children.

Some are calling it the ‘Mad Men’ effect what with all the hard liquor Betty Draper and other female characters enjoy on the popular show. Whatever the cause, more women are drinking whiskey and actually enjoying it. A recent MSNBC article states these “evolving drinking preferences present opportunities for industry innovation.”

The problem is that advertisers haven’t quite figured out how to reach female consumers of hard liquor without being borderline offensive. The one campaign carried out by a well-known brand (Jack Daniels) encouraged women to “spike their cookies.” In other words, women would only use whiskey or other hard liquors for baking? The current campaigns for Jameson and Chivas send the messages that real men drink whiskey (the former) and to drink scotch (the latter), one must belong to a kind of brotherhood.

The argument in favor of these types of campaigns comes from research showing that while both men and women will respond to ads intended for men, men won’t respond to ads intended for women. Maybe there is research that supports this theory, but, as a PR firm specializing in reaching women through the power of media, we believe that until brands reach out to and actually engage with their female consumers, they will never reap the full benefits of women’s buying power.

As this trend continues to become more pervasive in our culture, it should be interesting to see how other big players in the liquor game decide to handle their marketing and advertising when it comes to drawing in female consumers.

More thoughts on this subject by Huffington Post Blogger Brooke Carey

FletcherPR is a national communications firm that specializes in reaching women through the power of media. Headquartered in Knoxville, TN with staff in Nashville & Los Angeles, we are a full-service agency providing strategic public relations, social media and marketing communications services to our clients throughout the U.S.