Spritz Society, a sparkling seltzer brand, uses consumer driven data and personal interactions to drive its business model and flavor selections. In addition, its founders are the social media moguls behind @girlwithnojob and @boywithnojob, and the hosts of The Morning Toast podcast. Ben Soffer, founder and CEO of Spritz Society, joined Cheddar News to talk about the company's bid to transform the landscape of premium sparkling cocktails.

Between Bells

Spritz Society Brings Fresh Frizz to Sparkling Seltzer Market  

friends between bells on cheddar news life is too short for drinks, you don't love, that's the motto for Sprits Society. The award winning brand of premium sparkling cocktails founded by media influencers and entrepreneurs. Now, since launching in august of 2021 the brand has made strides in the cocktail space and has also come into more shelves in the near future and you can already find Spritz society and a slew of states with more markets coming this summer. So joining us now to discuss is Ben Software, the founder and Ceo of Spirit Society, been such a pleasure to have you here, thank you so much for joining us. So let's talk about the growth of the company. What has been basically signaling for you guys in terms of what your viewers and consumers really want right now, they're wanting something that prioritizes taste. That's first and foremost. This product was built through community. So as you know, uh myself, my wife, girl with no job, her sister Jackie. We have a little over six million followers on instagram and that's really the smallest part of our audience. It's really the morning toast, the number one female Millennial morning show that's available as a podcast. But what we did was we used that community to incubate this product. We went to them and we said, what are you looking for? We sent them a google form, asking their opinions on logos, flavors, can designs alcohol percentage and we called that research and development group the spirit society. So the name Spirit society comes from the empathetic approach we took to building this brand about 18 months ago and every single decision that we make is rooted in data, which is very unique for alcohol company given the data is so difficult to come by, I'm glad you mentioned the data. Do you almost feel like in a sense that gives you an inherent advantage because translating The success of a brand into ready to drink cocktails, it's very difficult for a lot of other people. So how do you sort of use that to your advantage here? Is that the data play here? It's the day to play. So we launched direct to consumer in 46 states. The goal was to see where are we seeing significant poll throughout the United States and then use the data to tell us where we should be entering wholesale. So it's not a spray and pray, let's go national hope that this works. It's alright. We're seeing strong pull through D. T. C in California, massachusetts, Illinois, florida, new york. Let's focus on those five states. Talk to the retailers, bring on distributors and enter methodically as opposed to brands that are really just going nationally, assuming that their audiences there when really they don't know, we know, I know that people are buying in new york and florida. They're willing to wait five days for it to come through the mail, right? So they're obviously gonna go downstairs and buy it. Okay, so like that's interesting sort of the targeted approach here because look, I don't have to tell you this is a saturated market with tons of big players investing heavily in the spirits in the spirits and the hard seltzer area. How do you sort of stay in the, stay in the conversation, but also differentiate yourself from all these other brands that are out there that have a lot more money and a lot more resources than you probably do. Yeah. So first and foremost is brand, you'll taste the product, which I'm excited. I'm gonna do that right now. Yes, Peach is my personal favorite. But if you've had any hard seltzer can cocktail spritz, I guarantee that this is better than anything you've tried. We spent a very, very long time making sure that they were delicious uh, and work with a world class beverage scientists to create unique cocktails to us. We own our recipes and so the main differentiator here is taste. But what brings you to us to try for the first time is our community, our social community, as I mentioned, is incredibly incredibly behind this product and it's because we've spent the last decade cultivating this community. I never really asked them for anything. It wasn't, okay, let's launch a slew of products and see what sticks it was this, let's talk to the community, see what they're looking for, see what's missing and carve our own white space in what people say is a crowded market that's really just flooded by incumbents. It's not that crowded when you think that the dye Agios jim beam's etcetera are flooding with product that is in cans because our TVs are an $86 billion industry by 2030. So they're like, we got to get in the can game. It doesn't matter what's in the can. Just throw something in there. It doesn't matter what it looks like. It doesn't matter who's behind it, who's drinking it? Totally. So I first reactions by the way, I just try the peach, really good full flavor. But my first thinking as a consumer is looking at the nutrition facts, low sugar content on something like this, low carbs on something like this, which is good and calories, only 100 and 20 calories per can. What are the flavors that you've sort of invested in right now? And is there potential for other ones down the road based on the data? Yeah. So the community asked us to launch with grapefruit, blood, orange, pineapple and lemon. Those are our first four. The community then said we want this in a convenient eight pack. So we made a variety pack two of each flavor. The community then said we want peach, we sent them four options. Passion fruit, blueberry strawberry peach again use consumer data to understand what flavors would be a great relevant summer flavor. Had the community pick which one they were looking for and I'm happy that they picked peach because the white wine base makes a perfect also the social media aspect to this again, you have over, you know, a million followers on this account right here. The fact that you literally d m thousands of your followers to talk about packaging, the can the taste, all of that. Do you also think that that's sort of an advantage that a lot of these other, you know, companies don't have in terms of relationship with their consumer? Yes, there might be fans of Corona, yes, there might be fans of all these other, you know, brands, but they're not as heavily as invested in terms of what their, their viewers and their consumers are into as you guys are. Yeah. And even in these celebrity owned influence her own brands, these influencers and celebrities aren't running the company. So I'm not the face really my wife and her sister in the face. But together we run this company, we have co founders, my, my uh partner Jake Lewin is President Zach Weinreb, head of sales and together we run this company, it's not a uh, private equity backed venture back, Let's get celebrity faces were in it, living it and breathing it every day when we do a meet and greet, we're the ones booking it with the retailer, we're talking to the retailer and I think that's where you see the success and brands in the past when they don't just slap a celebrity on it and they really incubate a product with them. It's something that the community sees and says, oh, they really drink this, we really drink this every single day. And that's what's led to strong pull online. And in stores, boy with no job, obviously incredibly successful. Girl with no job. Your wife's company obviously incredibly successful. How is Tiktok and instagram really sort of changed the game in all of this. How has Tiktok and instagram changed the game in terms of promoting this product or just, they were just launching a brand, just really launching a brand. The fact that you're able to do something like this because of social media is really sort of telling about the power of these platforms. Oh yeah, yeah. We can reach everybody With the type of content they're looking for and take data again from the last 10 years to know stories is, for example, the best place for us to promote this product is where our day to day comes to life, will be at the pool and we'll be drinking it or we're able to be ourselves and take it to a party. We mostly post memes or reels and feed. So Claudia will incorporate it, My wife into a real on Tiktok or a real on instagram, but it's, it's our super power is being able to monetize our socials for spirit society and not need to pull it out of a marketing budget, right? It's just an extra and we have friends and family that reach over 100 million followers. So it's pr seating reels and Tiktok, as you mentioned, it's all just creating content that drives the consumer to know about the product. I think it's delicious. It's the taste of the summer I'm into it. Ben Soffer is the founder and Ceo of Spirit Society. Been such a pleasure to have you here.