Brown-Forman Shuffles Marketing Leadership Team for Whiskey Brands
Brown-Forman, is shaking up marketing leadership of its whiskey brands.
The company which includes Jack Daniel’s, Woodford Reserve, Old Forester, and Diplomático in its portfolio, has made two changes to its marketing leadership line-up: Mark Bacon was named managing director of Jack Daniel’s Brands, and Mia Simpson Culp was named managing director, Woodford Reserve and Old Forester, effective March 1.
Bacon started as a sales rep at Brown-Forman in 1989. Over his nearly 35 years with the company, he has held various sales and marketing roles, including most recently as managing director of super premium American Whiskey.
Culp is moving from the company’s tequila division, where she has served as managing director since 2021.
The Art of Booze Branding
The new appointments come at an important time in the beverage alcohol giant's marketing strategic direction. Branding and messaging are particularly complex for an alcohol company, and in recent years Brown-Forman has taken steps to ensure they’re hitting the right notes when it comes to meeting consumers’ needs.
“As a BevAlc brand, we have to be very careful and responsible about how we talk to consumers and make sure we're talking to the people that our brand is intended for,” Lynette Green, e-commerce manager for the Jack Daniel's family of brands in the U.S. and Canada, told CGT in a recent conversation.
Brown-Forman recently implemented an integrated marketing approach that Green says has enabled better communication between brands and teams to help the right content reach the right person.
“We know [from research] that there are nine different things that a BevAlc spirit shopper wants and the pieces of information they need to really make a decision. … When we are one click from the cart, maybe two clicks from the cart, we need to [flip] that creative messaging to the more functional message so we can close the deal,” Green shared.
