What does a National brand ambassador do for a distillery? Largely, a brand ambassador is known as an encouraging spokesperson, an opinion leader or a public influencer, appointed as an internal or external agent to boost product or service sales and create brand awareness. We sat down with Woodinville Whiskey Company’s National Brand Ambassador, Ariel Jahn to discuss her role with the company and to sample two of their standard whiskey expressions.
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To me a brand ambassador is the ultimate salesperson. A throw back to when people traveled the road with their trunk’s full of encyclopedias, vacuums, shoes and all sorts of merchandise. It was almost like a traveling Amazon, before Amazon. The only difference is Ariel’s trunk is full of whiskey.
Now days everything is online and social media has all kinds of brand influencers that can affect sales for a company, heck even Jim and I could be considered brand influencers. Even with all that Ariel is still much needed to ensure that the word of Woodinville is getting out to masses. No she doesn’t go door to door, damn that would be awesome wouldn’t it. A whiskey slinger from days gone by coming to my door with free samples, wait a minute. Ariel is setting in my front room with three bottles telling Jim and I about Woodinville.
To be honest, this is out of the norm with all the COVID issues, but what she does do is goes to bars, liquor stores and events to ensure that you the consumer sees the Woodinville Brand on the shelf. She conducts tastings at liquor stores and ensures that those displays look appropriate. At events she is an educator of what Woodinville is all about. Almost every distillery has a team of brand ambassadors that does the same thing.
We must say that Ariel is damn good at what she does, she is very knowledgeable about whiskey in general and knows every facet of Woodinville Whiskey Company. We have visited with other brand ambassadors that had been hired by companies because of their public relations back ground or education that knew very little about the whiskey or bourbon. That isn’t the case with her, but what else would you expect from a Kentucky Woman who traveled west only to find herself back in Kentucky.
We could only hope that more distilleries will catch on to what Woodinville is doing and hire people for this positions that are just as passionate about whiskey as Ariel. We hope you enjoy the episode and go purchase a couple of bottles of Woodinville‘s Whiskey. While you’re out you might even run into Ariel at a store or a bar slinging her whiskey samples for all to try.
So it’s that time again. Grab that glass, a bottle of Woodinville whiskey, pour it in that glass and sit back as Ariel Jahn travels down The Bourbon Road to knock on our door to pitch her beloved brand. Cheers
Mike (Big Chief)
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