NIGHTLIFE: AN OPPORTUNITY THAT ONLY GETS BETTER WHEN THE ECONOMY TAKES A NOSE DIVE!

I started my marketing career at the age of 18, marketing businesses to college students via a medium my partner and I called CDC or the College Discount Card. It was a card that was given free to students and enabled them to stretch there valuable but tight dollars. After graduating college in 1992, and with the internet still no where to be found, my partner and I grew apart, he went to law school and I moved to Boston to help start a college nightlife and entertainment guide called University People Magazine. I was always intrigued throughout college with the nightlife scene and how to market brands to the consumers who frequented these establishments. I took that magazine and built it into one of the best nightlife magazines Boston has ever seen. What made UPM different was that when we sold ads to establishments, movie companies, record labels, or even CPG companies, ads were always accompanied by a photo page of people in the nightlife scene celebrating the brands, products, or the establishment. We took products and intertwined them into the scene we always gave patrons of bars and nightclubs something for nothing and in return got photos of candid photos of consumers and then along with the names of the people in the photos, came up with quirky captions to go along with each photo all for the world to see. Every week when the magazine hit the streets the city went wild, people scrambled throughout the city to get the magazine and see if they or someone they knew was featured and with what products.

After hanging out in the scene and studying these consumers of the night, I realized that there was something special here. I began to entrench myself in the scene and study the consumers who went to these establishments. Boston was just the start of my long winding road of a career. Over the years I worked as a nightclub promoter, a club manager, a regional marketing manager for Charles Jacquin the makers of Chambord, to Assistant NY Market Manager for Dewar’s via US Concepts, to starting a marketing company called Fat Cat Promotions which worked with such clients as Bacardi, Jim Beam, Southern Comfort, Tito’s Vodka, Street Glow, Absolute, The Original Soupman, and many more until its sale two years ago. Fat Cat developed and executed on-premise marketing campaigns for these companies or created custom events for them. Over the years I learned how club owners think, how liquor distributors push products, how alcoholic and non alcoholic beverage companies push products, what consumers want, and most of all that when the economy takes a nose dive, this industry tends to grow. Why does it grow you ask? Because when people lose their jobs, begin to lose money, lose faith in our government, or just struggle to pay the bills, some how, some way, they always find a way to scrounge up the funds to go to the local bar or club and drink there sorrows away.

One might not think that consumers who are down on their luck might not be ideal candidates to market products to but they are actually the best. These are the people who are looking for some assistance and that assistance can come in the form of a new shirt, a new cd, free song downloads, free product samples, etc. These are the things that when these people finally get back on their feet, their buying habits will change, they might or might not buy your product right away because you gave them a free sample or a giveaway, but in the end consumers love free stuff. In a recent study done by the Advertising Specialties Institute, people who receive a free sample of something or something of value imprinted with a brands logo are more likely to remember and buy that brand afterwards.

In a down economy, the nightlife scene is a marketer’s dream. It offers a consumer base which is typically well educated, between the ages of 18-40 and is either spending the money of their parents or that which was self earned, in other words they have money to spend on things they want. It is an industry which offers up an audience of early adopters which are typically open to being bombarded with marketing while they are blocking out the woes of the world. These are the people that can make or break brands. This is an industry which is receptive to just about anything. The mediums available to a marketer to reach these consumers is endless, it is an environment that allows creativity to run wild. Some mediums available are bathroom advertising, on-premise sampling, MCs and DJs from within the scene, bartenders, SMS, establishment web banners and emails, fliers, websites, bar television networks, party sponsorship, or create your own. If you’re looking to test out marketing in this environment, you can always get involved in my latest program the Nightlife Survival Kit, which allows marketers to test out this environment for a very small slice of their marketing budget.

This environment is one which allows CPG companies to market products for as little as $1000 per establishment, but pick your locations and programs wisely, each is different in their own way. Each location caters to a different demographic audience with different tastes on different nights such as alternative lifestyle, Latin, Afro-American, classic disco, jazz, blues, house music, country music, techies, etc. Once you have chosen your demographic profile, make sure the models that are sent to educate the consumer in these venues, know your product inside and out, and have used or tasted your product. Make sure the models being sent into these establishments dress like and can relate to the audience with which you are trying to connect. Over the years I have seen many agencies tell clients that they know the nightlife industry and the only thing they seem to know about this industry is how to walk in the door and have a cocktail. The nightlife industry is an industry unlike any other. It is an industry which is sometimes hard to understand and one in which it is sometimes a difficult environment within which to market products, but if your agency is chosen wisely and they can show you the ROI they have created for other clients in this type of atmosphere, then you can rest assured this agency is one that can bring you the ROI you desire.