Product Review: For the first half of my project, I monitored Cabin Fever Maple Whiskey. In less then 5 years, it has gone from being produced as a backyard hobby to being sold in 20 states. Cabin Fever is still owned and operated by its original owners, The Robillard family. The Robillards use this fact as one of their marketing tools. As the company grows, and Cabin Fever becomes more popular, the owners have tried to combine the homegrown/owner operated feeling while embracing the expansion and growth of their company.
Comparison: Cabin Fever's closest competitor is Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey. In comparing the two products on SocialMention. I found that Jack Daniel's had a lot more Reach, Passion, Sentiment and Strength compared to Cabin Fever.
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| Cabin Fever |
This isn't necessarily because Cabin Fever isn't being mentioned, but Jack Daniel's has been around a lot longer, is extremely well know, and has a significant amount more in finances for marketing, therefor has a much larger reach and audience.
I compared the two products on Icerocket as well. I found that Cabin Fever doesn't even register on the graph for the past few weeks, but Jack Daniel's had a significant increase in mid-march.
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| Cabin Fever |
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| Jack Daniel's |
I discovered that in mid-March Jack Daniel's announced that a new product called Jack Daniel's Honey Whiskey will be released by summer. This announcement explains the significant increase on the chart.
The last place I compared the two products was on Facebook. As I mentioned in my first report, Cabin Fever uses Facebook as a major part of the company's marketing strategy. In addition to the company's own page, the owners, specifically Julie Robillard, use their personal pages for marketing Cabin Fever. For the purposes of this report, I compared the Cabin Fever company page with the Jack Daniel's page.
Both companies have a similar style of interacting with their fans. They both sponsor a band and promote the shows on their Facebook pages. Jack Daniel's promotes Cage The Elephant, and Cabin Fever promotes Craving Lucy. Both companies interact with their fans through their pages, and often ask open-ended questions to promote responses and conversations.
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| facebook.com |
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| facebook.com |
Target Market: I believe Cabin Fever should continue to focus on its current target market of men and women, ages 21-50. These are the people that are most likely to buy the product, become repeat customers and spread the word about Cabin Fever. For a company with a limited marketing budget, word of mouth marketing can be priceless.
Recommendations: Cabin Fever is a small company that has grown a lot in a short time, and social media has been and will continue to be a crucial marketing tool. The use of Facebook has been an essential way to spread the word about Cabin Fever promotional appearances and events, but Julie's page has unofficially become the 'official' Cabin Fever page, with over 1,000 more friends than the Cabin Fever page.
Facebook: I think the Cabin Fever facebook page should be the company's official page, and the other three owners can interact more with their followers. Postings related to Cabin Fever should be directed to the company's page from each of the owner's personal pages. There, links to other Cabin Fever sites can be posted.
YouTube: There are only two Cabin Fever videos currently on YouTube. I think there should be more Cabin Fever commercials produced and posted like the one that exists. Another way to create more buzz around videos would be to have a contest for the most creative Cabin Fever commercial. This would be a platform to create a Cabin Fever channel on YouTube.
Twitter: Twitter is a part of social media that more and more people are starting to tap into. Currently, posts on Cabin Fever's facebook page are sent directly to twitter, but posts from Julie's personal facebook page are not, and she has the largest number of followers. Until her facebook page is no longer the 'unofficial' fan page, her posts should be sent directly to the Cabin Fever Twitter page also. Twitter posts about Cabin Fever should be retweeted as well, because people are tweeting about it.
If the Robillards continue to embrace the Groundswell and use social media as a marketing tool, I have no doubt that Cabin Fever will become a household name like Jack Daniel's. Social Media Marketing has allowed a small company to grow at a break-neck pace. In 5 short years it has gone from being brewed in a garage to being sold in 20 states. If that's only the first 5 years, I can't wait to see what happens in the next 5 years! And one last thought...I like my Cabin Fever with ginger ale, how do you like yours?
Those are great recommendations. Transitioning to an official FB page will also help with branding, sharing, and will help the founders potentially collect demographic information if they want to pay for that or advertise in the future. With something like a whiskey there is so much content that can be created to promote their product, commercials, recipe suggestions (for drinks and food), photos, events, sponsorships, etc. I think they could definitely use you to help them pump up their presence!
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