The Leadership Challenge Behind Scaling Celebrity Drinks Brands
There’s a bunch of things going on here.
There’s a bunch of things going on here.
Celebrity-backed drinks brands launch with amazing visibility but perhaps there is an expectation that this will easily translate into sustainable distribution? At one time maybe this could carry sales but now this category is more crowded the issue is ensuring the star-power supports long-term sales. What we are seeing is a need for experienced salespeople capable of building a growth sales channel focused on the multiple retailers.
In this case study, a founder-led celebrity drinks brand had reached precisely that point. This SME business is absolutely on-point with BWS brands: energetic entrepreneurial founders, a strong relationship with the celebrity. Sales focus to build this brand was still run by these founders but they were time-poor managing distributors across the globe while running UK direct sales to the supermarkets. There was a clear need to bring in an experienced salesperson to focus on driving UK supermarket growth for this brand.
Celebrity involvement in their drinks brand can vary. Some are very involved, acting as brand ambassadors and have clear ideas about positioning. Others prefer to push it out regularly on their socials and be present at a handful of annual events. Currently for these brands regular celebrity involvement is key given that consumers and retailers have plenty of choice.
So this search was to find someone who could calmly and effectively operate across 3 different areas: 1. driving long-term sales to the big 4 UK supermarkets 2. manage the celebrity partnership (and not be distracted!) 3. skillfully navigate the culture and emotions around the founder-led context. The emotional dynamic was central and this mapped onto the personality who would be successful. Finding an experienced salesperson with this type of commercial acumen (priority #1) is not difficult. But someone who could manage this commercial, emotional, celebrity-led environment is very specific.
The UK grocery drinks market is a highly specialised talent pool. Experienced salespeople tend to be well looked after by their employers and don’t move roles easily. Supermarket drinks buyers often remain in this category given the specialist nature of drinks knowledge and so this has created a relationship-led, embedded talent pool where it has (and continues to be) difficult to introduce and develop junior salespeople. Talent supply is severely constrained. Due to often annual range reviews experienced salespeople joining a new business need a longer-time scale before delivering visible results. Low incentive + high risk to move roles = small talent pool. Given the limited levers, some incentive can be created by focusing on compensation. (I appreciate that there is a recruitment stereotype around salaries (!) but this is not that). Given the markets dynamics we have discussed, finding the experienced salesperson who is the right fit for your company is often a much smaller talent-pool than businesses expect.
Furthermore, what made this search interesting was that a central challenge was not about hiring at all, actually it was about transition. Moving from a relationship-led model to scale without losing the personal relationship that was key to the brand’s success in the UK.
As celebrity drinks brands continue to grow this tension could become increasingly common. The brands that succeed long term are not necessarily those with the highest-profile names, but those who focus on building leadership structures that can translate attention into sustainable commercial growth. The leadership challenge is not simply commercial.
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