Over the past few weeks, my friend Darcy over at The Art of Drink has helped lash together the rafts and bring together the best in spirit and cocktail writers (for some reason he felt I could be included in that category) and create a new form of advertising superpower: the Spirit and Cocktail Ad Network.
Some of you may have already noticed ads beginning to appear at the right (thanks, Jimmy!) and as time goes on, we hope to be seeing more of this.
Now, the great thing about being so closely aligned with my brothers and sisters in the industry is that you won’t have to be looking at ads for Viagra – here at the Network we’re all about the booze.
For more information, read our fabulous press release below:
—- Press Release —-
Industry: Food & Beverage
Release Date: June 27, 2007
Bloggers Launch Spirit and Cocktail Advertising Co-op
In the past few years the revival of the cocktail has resonated around the world. This new popularity has been helped along by shows like Sex and the City, and by events like the annual Tales of the Cocktail conference in New Orleans. This growth has coincided with the development of a great number of websites that celebrate great cocktails and use a chef-like approach to their drink creations. A significant part of today’s cocktail renaissance is being driven by a group of dedicated cocktail and spirits bloggers who have made intelligent cocktail discussions a reality, and have created a community of like-minded individuals wanting to learn more about this intriguing culinary art form.
Because of the rapid growth and increased competition in the beverage industry, many companies are looking for better ways to connect with customers. Participation in Internet communities has been demonstrated to be a great way of staying connected to customers.
To facilitate the inclusion of food and beverage companies into this growing online community, a group of bloggers has created the Spirits and Cocktail advertising “Hive”, through BlogAds, that allows companies to purchase premium ad space on the participating sites. The initial group of sites includes; The Art of Drink, Jeffrey Morgenthaler, The Liquid Muse, Cocktail Chronicles, A Dash of Bitters, Cocktailnerd and Kaiser Penguin. Together these blogs represent the best the web has to offer in modern cocktail creation and spirit reviews. These blogs are written by bartenders, cocktail enthusiasts, restaurant / bar owners and industry experts, and together they represent the best the web has to offer in modern cocktail creation and spirits reviews. Additional sites will be added in coming months.
This advertising co-op offers participating companies approximately 50,000 highly target ad impressions per week, from people who are keenly interested in their products. The readers of these blogs are people who are looking for quality products for use in cocktail creation. They have an interest in learning about new liquors, bar tools, techniques, books and related beverages.
Industry participation helps to support the bloggers who provide a valuable service to the industry. Not only do these websites provide opinion and discussion for a wide variety of products, they also promote responsible consumption of alcoholic drinks by focusing on quality instead of quantity, these bloggers believe and promote the idea of “Drink Better, Not More.”
For more information please visit the Spirits and Cocktails Hive on the BlogAds site.
Thanks, Gabriel! We’re glad to have you in the family as well. Now get back to work!
I’m going to leave that Viagra comment alone… for now.
This must be why you get paid the big bucks, Jeffrey; it didn’t even occur to me to do a post on this. I’ll have to follow-up on it as well. After all, there’s probably no better promotional spot than our own space. Glad to be on board the raft, and even more glad to have you on board sir.
Now, about that Viagra, where did you say I could get it?