On International Women’s Day every year, the voices and stories of women across the world are celebrated, as we address the issues that cause gender inequality and diversity. But despite these issues remaining, such voices and stories take a backseat once the day is done.
We think it’s worth doing the opposite and actively challenging the issues that create these gaps in our industry. So, we’ve launched this weekly series, Wednesday Women, where we’ll profile the stories of the inspiring women in this great and wide industry.
Today we speak with Hannah Vinden, Marketing Director at Better Beer.
With a career spanning liquor and hospitality, Vinden has worked across brands like Bacardi, Pernod Ricard and Suntory, honing her expertise in marketing, sales and more. But its her role at Better Beer that has really cemented her reputation as a force in the industry.
Reflecting on her journey with Better Beer, Vinden recalls: “We thought it would only be ~20 hours a week and before you know it, I came in-house, built up the marketing and brand ambassador teams, and the brand went from $0 to $100m revenue in 30 months. Needless to say, the brand catapulted, and instead of being a flash-in-the-pan brand, continues to show really positive growth and strong brand health.
“Prior to Better Beer, I’d never actually worked in the beer industry before, but my experience was completely transferable and my determination and ambition for continual career development made it an easy transition.”
Finding success in a declining category
Since joining Better Beer, Vinden has played a pivotal role in scaling Better Beer’s presence, carving out a distinct identity for the brand in a highly competitive market. While there are many factors that have contributed to the brand’s success, Vinden highlights the power of community engagement.
“Two of the co-founders have a highly engaged social following, which made announcing the beer brand to a couple-of-million fans pretty easy,” she says.
“We launched a product that resonated with that audience (i.e. Zero Carb, Zero Sugar), essentially creating a new sub-category in a declining overall category. Importantly, our partnership with Endeavour was crucial to making the brand accessible with a national distribution, from day one. Independent brands can spend years trying to get the national footprint we started with, and we are so fortunate Endeavour recognised the opportunity in our brand that we saw.”
Community-led marketing
Now, Vinden says the team have been successful in creating a cult lifestyle brand that makes consumers feel like they’re part of a community.
“The amount of DMs and UGC we get from fans is truly mindblowing. We reply to every single message and want everyone to feel like they’re welcome and part of the family. Fans feel like they’re having a conversation with their mate when they message us and all of the content we produce is designed to be entertaining, rather than a contrived or pushy sales ad,” she explains.
“We knew early on we had a captive audience that has a great sense of humour and seeks entertainment through their phone – whether through group chats with their mates or via social media. Two of our co-founders are literal comedians and everyone who works for the business lives and breathes what they do, whilst bringing their fun a-game to work every day.”
Vinden’s strategic approach, combined with an understanding of what today’s drinkers want and the brand’s ability to attract strong talent, has fueled its rapid rise and motivates Vinden to continue pushing the boundaries of creative, community-led marketing.
“None of us want to rinse and repeat what’s been done before, and all of our creative ideation is brewed in-house, rather than relying on expensive creative agencies to do the heavy lifting for us.
“We ran one organic competition a few months ago which grew our Instagram following by 20,000+ followers with over 80,000 comments on the post, in five days. We want to continually reward our loyal fans, so giveaways are key.
“In 2022, one year after launching, we created our own unofficial public holiday, Day For It Day, as a publicity stunt and we’ve kept it going. We have a sharp price point in retail for the day, 50 per cent off merchandise, throw epic parties, and have even started paying fans to take a day off work. Each year, we’ll continue to make this bigger and better, so it doesn’t become stagnant,” she added.
Encouraging diversity
Throughout her career in the liquor and hospitality industries, Vinden has carved out her own success at the forefront of the industry, but she has still navigated the challenges of a traditionally male-dominated space.
“You might as well call it ‘the dry cleaners’, because the liquor industry is full of suits. Without opening a ‘lean-in’ can of worms here, the fact I am determined, hard-working and ambitious has helped me climb the career ladder,” she says.
Reflecting on the changes she’d like to see in the industry, Vinden says: “Unacceptable behaviour needs to be called out more, as opposed to being swept under the rug.
“In all industries, I’d personally love to not have to have ‘women’s days’ or sad little cupcakes – it should just be a given and not something we have to do in order to shine a light on female talent.
“The Better Beer business has pretty much always been 50/50 women/men – hiring people based on experience and being a great cultural fit, as opposed to trying to be perceived as being diverse through corporate announcements. We’ve got such a talented and driven group of people that work in the business from a variety of demographics, all with various life experiences, and I think that diversity of insight shows in what we do.”
While Vinden has paved her own way, she also recognises the mentors that have helped shape her career by offering guidance, support and inspiration.
“Not only did I have a great mentor at Pernod, who took time out of his day to help me take a career change from sales into marketing, but I had an amazing manager when I was at Good Food Events, who helped shape me as a leader. She was incredibly empathetic and ensured her team were empowered to do their jobs successfully.
“In the first couple of years at Better Beer I managed a team of ten across Australia and New Zealand. It’s all too easy to be ‘too busy’ for the people around you, but taking the time to be empathetic and genuinely give a shit about people goes a long way. No one wants to be made to feel like a replaceable small cog or a pawn in a business.”