David vs Goliath Brand Positioning

"We really leaned into the classic ‘David versus Goliath’ narrative with the brand. We were David and, as Justine Troy describes in Every Bastard Says No, we were ‘quite lippy with it’.1 We aimed to take on the large corporate liquor giants where they were weakest: They were slower in their activities and bland and…"

"Geoff’s work building a brand was incredible, though, and it helped place us not just as a Kiwi-made vodka but also as young maverick upstarts. In keeping with our beginning – the crazy idea to make vodka in New Zealand – we were trying lots of things that no one else had tried. We were small and didn’t have the funding that the big liquor brands did, so Geoff knew we therefore needed to be loud and do the things that they couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Geoff became the Chief Vodka Bloke. We hired a Vodka Professor to head up the Vodka University, where he’d go around in a white coat and teach classes for bar people, bringing them in to learn how to make cocktails (while also showing them why they should be stocking their bars with bottles of our product). By virtue of being a supplier, we had access to places that many people couldn’t get into or visit. I recall seeing Hugh Hefner, his doctor, and a few blonde bunnies partying in the roped-off section of a venue that we supplied in Los Angeles. And I recall having to learn a few times that drinking cocktails is very different to drinking beer."