I love a good novelty product. Usually they are an artifact of pop culture. They commonly occur when a person of some celebrity status becomes involved with an item. They can also be based on pop fads.
The question is, how long do they last? Are they just going to be a flash in the pan? Or are they going to survive for the long haul?
I summon the memory of the late Jimmy Buffett, who was not only a masterful crooner, musician, and lyricist. He was also a savvy businessman who successfully leveraged his hit song, Margaritaville, into a restaurant chain, resorts, and merchandise. He became synonymous with the brand, and even after he has passed, it is still strong. A new Margaritaville master plan community and resort is being built at Lake Texoma Texas, near Denison. Think 7500 homes, 250-room hotel, restaurants, retail, and a marina.
But when he tried to roll the dice again with a burger chain called Cheeseburger In Paradise, also a hit song, it failed to gain much traction. It debuted in 2002, and somehow managed to survive until the last location closed in 2020.
I also remember the late President Jimmy Carter, the image of piety and conservative living (although not necessarily in politics). His brother, Billy, was the antithesis of all this, known for his brash, beer-drinking lifestyle. The result was Billy Beer, a brand brewed under license by six different brewers around the nation.
Cans of Billy Beer frequently show up on eBay and on Facebook beer can collecting pages, with people thinking they have found gold. They’re probably worth more at the recycler, because so many were made and saved. The beer was trash, and was only available for about a year.
So when I read that the Kielce Brothers, Jason and Travis, had acquired an ownership stake in Garage Beer last year, I knew we were in for another cycle of novelty. The brand is still available today, and is actually the fastest growing light beer in the US. It is easy to make claims like that if you understand how stats work. A new ad campaign tries to leverage the Kelces’ celebrity status.
But what happens when the Kelces fade into obscurity? Sure, they’re famous now, but will their aura fade? And what about the really important questions, like: Can this brand gain shelf space in a very crowded sector, and is it actually any good?
The thing about novelty products is that consumers are highly likely to give it a go once. Whether they become repeat customers is another thing.
Their new campaign is put together well, supported by video content on their website as well as on Insta and X. There’s also merchandise to support the brand. But as I have seen all too many times, having and maintaining a good product, securing distribution, and gaining top-of-mind relevance among consumers are no small tasks. Relying on consumer discovery—that is, people just seeing it on the shelf and grabbing a sixer to give it a try—is usually a formula for disaster.
And if the product only elicits a big “Meh,” that’s a big skip forward to the end.
The Kelces already have a celebrity competitor in the beer business. In 2022, former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman introduced EIGHT Beer, a reference to his uniform number. He is focusing his distribution on Texas and Oklahoma, but I can tell you quite truthfully that all it took was one can to convince me I didn’t need to buy any more.
You might be thinking that a light beer—both in Aikman’s and the Kelces’ cases—would be safer, because light beer is the favorite style in the US. You would have a point there. It would be safer than either of them producing a super-hopped IPA that only a small portion of us craft beer fans would enjoy.
Then there is the promiscuity that craft beer drinkers exhibit. They (I mean we) like to drink around, trying as many different brews as possible. We log them on our Untappd account, a social media app for beer drinkers. Brand loyalty is far from consideration.
Unfortunately for the Kelces, they may get a lot of tire kickers, but that’s it. They need regular customers, and with only their Classic and Lime beer varietals, there isn’t a whole lot to try. Compare that to any craft brewery, which typically has at least eight to 10 beers on tap, and sometimes even 20 or more. I can be loyal to the brewery, but not any single one of their varieties, especially because there is a spirit of innovation and new product rollouts.
Right now I just want to get my hands on the beer cans so I can add them to my collection, regardless of whether they are full.
The Kelces are a lot like the other celebrities before who have more money than they know what to do with, so they dabble in this and that. It’s great being popular and rich, but that doesn’t mean your prowess on the field—or on a CD as in Buffett’s case—always transfers to other domains. There’s much to be said for sticking to one’s knitting.
Dr “I’ll Drink To That” Gerlich
