How Digital Native, Dirty Lemon Grew into a National Brand

Photo of Dirty Lemon beverages
 

By Tricia McKinnon

In the beginning beverage maker Dirty Lemon like many direct to consumer brands used Facebook and Instagram to market its products. It even designed product packaging specifically to fit on a 2 x 3-inch screen and focused on a minimal (a.k.a “bland”) aesthetic. But over time the brand found digital marketing to be cost prohibitive. 

“Having advertised with Facebook and Instagram since very early on, we saw the cost to acquire customers rise significantly, and it's at a place now where it's just unsustainable. I think that's happening because brands that have historically relied on traditional advertising methods are now shifting their ad dollars to online and to Facebook and Instagram. When that marketplace gets flooded with demand, it raises the price to connect with and acquire customers. As the prices rise and more advertisers enter the marketplace, there was a point for us that it no longer made sense to spend millions and millions of dollars on Facebook and Instagram” said Zak Normandin. 

“So as the pendulum swings from traditional brands going to digital and away from retail, we're doing the opposite, shifting to retail and away from digital. As a young brand, there's only so many levers we can pull to reach the broader mass market. Shifting to retail is a great way to connect with a local audience but also have an impact on the national scale,” says Normandin.

As with most direct to consumer brands an online only business can only take you so far. To reach a larger customer base brands have to broaden their distribution points. It is easier to discover new products in a physical environment when a consumer is already on a shopping trip and happens to notice an interesting new product. How man/y times have you discovered a new product simply by trying free samples at Trader Joe’s?

Seeing the writing on the wall, last year Dirty Lemon closed a deal that places its beverages at over 500 Walmart stores in the Unites States. While some argue this move may hurt the cachet of the brand, to reach high levels of growth you can’t stay niche forever. 

Normandin has called selling its product at Walmart as “the only way forward.” “If you look at the majority of beverage sales, they are either coming from Walmart, Target or Kroger, so we see this as an opportunity to acquire customers profitably” said Normandin. “When you look at what’s happened with Casper and a lot of direct-to-consumer companies that are getting hammered in the public market, it is because they’ve focused so much on spending whatever it takes to acquire customers and drive-top line growth. They’re losing a lot of money.”

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Tricia McKinnonStrategy & GrowthComment