Campbell Brown on product positioning
From Brown-Forman: Whiskey Worth Knowing · · Breakthru Beverage Group
“the word premium gets used quite a bit in the american whiskey category really in any spirit beer wine consumer goods product but george garvin brown set us on this path the minute he decided that he was going to put old forester in a bottle and sell it exclusively by the bottle at a time when many most people were not doing that”
On , Campbell Brown, Executive Director at Brown–Forman, spoke about product positioning during Brown-Forman: Whiskey Worth Knowing on Breakthru Beverage Group.
About Campbell Brown
Campbell Brown, a fifth-generation member of the Brown family and executive at Brown-Forman, has spoken extensively about the company's history and his role in overseeing its whiskey brands. He has described the company's founding principle, established by his great-great-grandfather George Garvin Brown, of selling Old Forester exclusively by the bottle with the label "nothing better in the market," which Brown said holds the family and employees accountable for product quality. Brown has discussed the company's investment in a new distillery in Louisville, which he described as a risky but worthwhile project given the brand's history, and noted that the oldest barrels produced there are just over two years old, with no rush to release them. He has also commented on the broader bourbon industry, stating that the growth and innovation in the category are "explosive" and that the presence of new competitors is "great for our industry" as it revives creativity. In addition to his work at Brown-Forman, Brown has been an advocate for charter schools. In a 2014 speech, he criticized the teachers union for supporting a state law that he said gives tenured teachers protections "no other public employee has," citing an article about teachers who kept their jobs after being found guilty of sexual misconduct. He argued that the issue is about political leadership, stating that "this is a test of who they are" and that "there is no middle ground" when it comes to children's futures. Brown has also participated in public discussions about news and media, having previously worked as a journalist at CNN and NBC News before joining Facebook as head of news partnerships, where he said his team works to "reduce the amount of false news misinformation on the platform while also trying to elevate and get more visibility for reliable sources of news and information."