What’s On Tap: Beacon-Based Beer Recommendations

As March Madness reaches its ironic conclusion at the start of April, millions of basketball fans will trudge to their neighborhood bars to watch the championship game and either celebrate or drown their sorrows with plenty of the same thing: beer. While wine drinkers and those who partake in the harder stuff aren’t unwelcome, beer and the massively propagating number of brands within the category are solidly the drink of choice for America’s sports fan.

But will those same drinkers turn to their phones for drink recommendations instead of waiting for the harried bartenders behind the flat-top to notice them?

That’s what Missouri-based Schlafly Beer is hoping as it embarks on a mission to get its craft beers front and center in the minds of drinkers across the St. Louis area. GeekWire reported that craft brewery Schlafly Beer has partnered with beacon marketing firm Juxtad to outfit up to 250 Missouri bars by May with TapTalker beacon networks that send push notifications to customers as soon as they enter the doors of their favorite bars. It might seem like an odd setting to install beacons, but there’s a real and pressing need for differentiation in a craft beer market that has seen an unprecedented explosion over the past decade. Schlafly CEO James Pendegraft thinks that a well-timed push notification can do wonders for drinkers who might have trouble picking from many bars’ extensive tap selections.

“We believe this will be a game-changer for the beer industry,” Pendegraft said in a statement. “Whereas most beer brands hope to connect with consumers through traditional marketing tactics, such as advertising, social media or experiential events, we can now take the consumer experience a step further — engaging Schlafly Beer drinkers at the exact moment when they are purchasing a beer.”

Like most beacon campaigns, the TapTalker sensors require users to download Schlafly’s proprietary app, which will plug them into “drink specials, tasting notes, new beer releases and more when it matters most.” If it sounds like any other beacon program put on by countless retailers before, that’s because it, more or less, is. However, where Schlafly could succeed where more general efforts have failed is in the specificity of its beacon-based recommendations. Instead of trying to use push notifications to narrow consumers’ focus toward a specific product or brand while they stand in a massive department store, Schlafly might have a more manageable fight on its hands by trying to nudge drinkers toward a specific type of beer rather than convincing them that they want a drink in the first place.

In fact, evidence suggests that consumers may actually appreciate the intrusion of a push notification, when, and only when, the information provided is timely and relevant. A Localytics study found that while 52 percent of consumers see a push notification as an “annoying distraction,” 26 percent conceded they were happy with their experiences when “they alert me to things I am interested in.”

Perhaps, a push notification sent as a way to hook a shopper whose just walked past an aisle is just the wrong way to utilize mobile beacons. On the other hand, putting them in a bar and then sending customers who walk through the door a quick pop-up saying that this pub has the following types of Schlafly on tap, that could be a delicately engineered way to deliver information when, and only when, consumers want and need it.

Localytics also found that 20 percent of consumers have positive associations with push notifications that save them time otherwise spent opening an app or looking up other information. If thirsty consumers can walk into a bar and immediately check their phones for a complete listing of which of their favorite craft brews are on tap, beacons could very quickly become an essential part of the drinking experience — just as long lines and difficulty grabbing the bartender’s attention are indelible right now.