Claire Warner chats brands, bartenders, health and wellness
If your interests include building brand-bartender relationships, health and wellness, finding balance, community and career success (including job satisfaction) then this podcast episode with Claire Warner needs to be on your download list.
Bartender, ambassador, brand co-founder, mentor, educator, public speaker – Claire Warner has an impressive CV. Her experience in the spirits industry spans 25 years, during which she has worked with some of the brightest minds in the business – and inspired many along the way, too.
As head of luxury advocacy at Diageo, Warner is passionate about championing the on-trade, building and supporting relationships between brands and bartenders. But her expertise, areas of interest and success goes much deeper. As one example, Warner is a huge advocate for health and wellbeing in the hospitality industry. This is partly what inspired her to co-found a non-alcoholic brand, Æcorn, with Seedlip and Sylva founder Ben Branson.
Reflecting on her time as a global brand ambassador, Warner said: “I wanted to prove myself, so I said yes to everything. I spread myself very thin. I went from a role in the UK to a European role and a global role, and then within that global role I moved to New York and lived there for several years, and still travelled extensively. One year, I spent 300 days on the road.
“I felt at the time it was necessary to build my profile and to continue to succeed and flourish in my career. But I burnt out.”
While far from ideal, Warner’s burnout helped to shape the following steps in her career.
“I became very interested in health and wellbeing as a way to try to find coping strategies to do the job,” Warner explained, sharing examples on The Spirits Business Podcast of ways to achieve balance when work demands so much from us.
Warner is also passionate about helping brands and bartenders to build long-lasting relationships. Several times throughout the conversation, Warner reiterates the importance of bartenders when it comes to building brands.
“It depends on which stat you read, but the one I kind of go with is that about 50% of us walk into a bar and don’t know what we’re going to drink, and a bartender is there to give us that recommendation,” she explains.
“And you know, you look at a bar and just see how many of those brands that they could potentially recommend. How do you make sure that your brand is front of mind when they’re recommending to their guests?
“And so that’s the work that we do, really within advocacy, is to create this sort of irrational desire for our brands that connect meaningfully and relevantly with the bartending community, so that when they’re at the point of purchase for a guest, they can say, ‘Oh, I love The Singleton, and these are some of the reasons why’.
“So, everything we do really is around kind of putting the bartender as the voice and that community at the heart of our work because we see them as our primary customer.”
The full podcast episode with Warner is available to listen to on all major streaming platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music.
Alternatively, use the Acast link below.
Recent episodes have included Trudiann Branker, the first female master blender at Mount Gay Rum, Georgie Bell, co-founder of independent whisky bottler The Heart Cut, Dan Szor, founder of English spirits producer the Cotswolds Distillery, and a live recording of a panel discussion focused on supporting and safeguarding women in hospitality, which is also available to watch on YouTube.
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