This article was initially published in the March issue of Global Drinks Intel magazine. For details on how to subscribe – for 20% off in May – click here.
My young son has just developed a love for hot chicken wings and has been enjoying the delights of Wingmans. To satisfy our taste buds, we’ve also been baking a few batches at home – so we invested in some sauces from Frank’s, the all-American hot sauce. We bought the classic red, and then stumbled upon a green one.
It didn’t register when I bought it but, as we tucked into our homemade wings, I noticed the overt branding, telling me how Frank’s – a massive US brand that was sold to McCormick & Company for US$4.2bn – was offering me a ‘Craft Edition’.
My heart sank.
Craft, which was once a by-word for small batch, small business, quality ingredients, made by skilled craftsmen and women, was now perfectly acceptable to be used by a massive batch-processed food brand. It has now firmly become such parlance that it’s been absorbed into common culture, where it often reflects attempts to premiumise ranges and brands.
This is no surprise given the rise of craft products in recent years, with consumers seeking out unique, high-quality products made with care and expertise. But, as the popularity of craft has grown, so too has the term’s commodification. Brands have started using the craft label to premiumise, regardless of whether they’re actually made with craftsmanship and skill. This practice, call it ‘craftwashing’, has led to a loss of trust in the label and confusion among consumers.
Take craft beer in the UK. With just three brewers – BrewDog, Camden Town and Beavertown – dominating craft sales, we appear to have hit saturation point. Especially when you consider that two of these formerly independent brewers are now owned by multinationals — Anheuser-Busch InBev purchased Camden Town in 2015, while Heineken completed its acquisition of Beavertown last year.
But the pendulum is about to swing the other way. Every generation rebels against the one that came before – it’s one of the few recurring consumer trends – and this is about to be played out in the world of craft.
We are entering the ‘post-craft era’, where consumers will be looking for something different. Brands that want to grow and thrive in this new era will need to look beyond simply using the term. They’ll need to go back to the roots of what made craft popular in the first place.
Beyond ingredients and skill, craft represented a new way of thinking and feeling that didn’t need to follow category norms – even to the point that craft founders and brands broke the very category codes that had been created.
For me, the true definition of craft is embracing ‘beautiful constraints’. The book that coined the term – ‘A Beautiful Constraint’ by Adam Morgan and Mark Barden – argues that limitations allow brands to turn apparent constraints into sources of possibility and advantage.
For many original craft brands, their constraints were their size and available funds, which forced them to think creatively about how to solve problems. A great example is flavoured beer Jubel. Launched in 2018, the brand secured a listing in UK multiple retailer Sainsbury’s in 2019 but had no means to really support it. So, founder Jesse Wilson drove 3,000 miles around the country to meet each manager of the 250 supermarkets Jubel was stocked in. The mission allowed the company to build individual relationships with store managers and the staff who would be selling the beer. Three years later, Jubel was the top-selling craft single in Sainsbury’s and the brand reported growth of 120%.
While big brands try to replicate the codes of craft, the truth is, many don’t understand the attitude behind it. They don’t have the same constraints, which breeds a new way of thinking.
This is where I believe the power of strategy comes into play. As advertising great David Ogilvy famously said: “Give me the freedom of a tight brief.” If all options are at play, if all resources are available, and if there is no accountability, we can’t embrace the beautiful constraint.
The question is, where are the brave marketeers ready to tear up the rule book and not be led by category drivers so that they, too, can embrace their beautiful constraint?
Let’s embrace a new version of craft that’s beyond a style and visual icon. Let’s embrace a beautiful constraint that creates a new attitude.
This article was initially published in the March issue of Global Drinks Intel magazine. For details on how to subscribe – for 20% off in May – click here.
