The spirits customer acquisition “funnel”—the process of turning a stranger into a paying, repeat buyer—is broken on both ends. At the top of the funnel (reaching new consumers), costs are rising fast: digital advertising is up 50–100% from 2020–21 levels, influencer trust is eroding, and the wholesale distribution system has consolidated into so few companies that getting a bottle onto a store shelf or behind a bar now requires substantial upfront investment. At the bottom of the funnel (keeping those customers), loyalty has collapsed: only 41% of spirits consumers call themselves brand loyal, and the generation entering the market—Gen Z—samples twice as many brands as their parents. The marketing math that built spirits brands for the last decade no longer works.
The economics are clear in the aggregate. Diageo—the world’s largest spirits company—reported net sales down 4% in the most recent half-year (July–December 2025), with volume declining and marketing spend being cut to protect margins. The company that once led the industry in marketing investment is now spending less because spending more stopped working. U.S. spirits supplier revenue fell 2.2% in 2025 to $36.4 billion even as volume rose 1.9%—meaning consumers are buying more bottles but spending less per bottle. The decade-long trend of consumers trading up to premium brands has reversed.
On social media, alcohol industry engagement averages just 0.10% per post (Rival IQ, 2025)—meaning for every 1,000 followers a brand has cultivated, one person engages. Instagram engagement rates dropped from 2.18% in 2021 to 1.59% in 2024—a 27% decline. Meanwhile, Facebook ad CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) for wine and spirits roughly doubled between 2020 and 2025. Brands are paying substantially more to reach fewer people who care less.
The three-tier system—the legally mandated structure requiring producers to sell through distributors to reach retailers—has consolidated into a near-duopoly. Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits (SGWS) dominates U.S. wholesale, and the landscape behind it is in upheaval: RNDC (Republic National Distributing Company), once the clear #2, exited California in 2025, lost major suppliers like Tito’s and Brown-Forman, and is selling operations in seven additional states to Reyes Beverage Group. The concentration is increasing, not decreasing. SGWS alone carries over 7,000 individual brands. A single sales rep manages 150–300 active products, and their bonus compensation is tied to “priority” brands—almost always the large suppliers funding promotional programs. A new brand without significant trade investment gets what insiders call “the warehouse shelf”—technically distributed, practically invisible.
Getting off that warehouse shelf requires substantial investment: programming funds to incentivize the distributor’s sales team, depletion allowances (per-case payments for moving product), sample budgets, promotional pricing, and repeated market visits. These costs must be replicated in every market a brand enters. The economics are punishing for new entrants—especially in categories where brand loyalty is low (just 27% for tequila, 37% for whiskey), meaning a large share of hard-won customers will not come back for a second bottle.
Gen Z is not simply “less loyal”—they are structurally disloyal in ways that break traditional lifetime value models. Consumer research shows Gen Z samples at least twice the number of brands annually as older generations and is active in 3–4 more beverage categories simultaneously. At bars and restaurants, Gen Z tries an average of 11 spirits brands and 5 drink categories per occasion—more than any other cohort. They are highly acquirable as trial purchasers but far less likely to become loyal repeat buyers.
Meanwhile, overall consumption frequency is falling: average U.S. drinks per week dropped from four to three between 2023 and 2024. Four in ten Gen Z drinkers are “mindful” about consumption; three in ten actively limit intake. Fewer drinking occasions spread across more brands means every variable in the customer lifetime value equation is moving in the wrong direction.
Spirits brands leaned heavily into influencer marketing as a primary acquisition channel. That channel is now in structural trouble. Trust in influencers dropped 5 percentage points in a single year (2023–24). Only 11% of consumers now prefer celebrity endorser personalities, down from 17–22% in 2020. Meanwhile, 81.2% of influencer marketers report it is harder to get the same return from collaborations compared to prior years. For spirits brands that built strategies around celebrity founders—particularly in tequila—the timing is acute: the channel is losing effectiveness precisely as competition within it has peaked.
The platform landscape makes it worse. Alcohol advertising is prohibited or severely restricted on several major platforms. TikTok only began permitting alcohol ads in a limited beta in July 2024, with a mandatory 25+ age floor—meaning spirits brands were locked out of the highest-engagement social platform (average 18% engagement vs. Instagram’s 2.4%) as it rose to dominance. Google restricted 34.2 million alcohol ads and removed 10.9 million in 2024.
1. Build a community that does the marketing for you. Hendrick’s Gin created the “Society of the Unusual”—an online community and event series built around its quirky, Victorian-inflected identity. Members get access to exclusive experiences and content; in return, they become unpaid advocates. During one summer campaign, Hendrick’s grew 11% while the broader gin category was flat. Maker’s Mark takes a different approach with its Ambassador program: a free membership where your name goes on a barrel, you’re invited to distillery events, and you receive exclusive releases. Millions of members who evangelize the brand at no advertising cost. For smaller producers, the same principle applies at a local scale through distillery membership clubs and barrel-pick programs. Direct-from-distillery sales have grown from 14% of craft spirits revenue in 2015 to 25.3% in 2023—and California distilleries alone welcomed over one million visitors in 2024, averaging $75 per visit.
2. Partner with smaller, authentic voices instead of celebrities. 73% of brands now prefer working with creators who have modest but engaged followings rather than big names. These smaller creators get nearly 3x the audience engagement of celebrities at a fraction of the cost. In a market where only 11% of consumers prefer celebrity endorsements (down from 17–22% in 2020), authenticity outperforms fame.
3. Own a cocktail occasion. When a brand “owns” a specific drink—the Spicy Margarita for tequila, the Espresso Martini for coffee liqueurs—the consumer is pre-selected by the recipe rather than re-choosing a brand each time. The occasion itself becomes the loyalty mechanism.
4. Sell fast in fewer places. Selling well in a concentrated number of stores keeps distributors engaged and protects shelf placement. Spreading thin across national distribution with slow sales is a path to being dropped from shelves—and once you lose distribution, the cost to get it back is even higher than the cost of getting it in the first place.
The acquisition cost crisis is structural, not cyclical. Distributor consolidation tightens further. Digital advertising restrictions will not ease. Gen Z’s brand promiscuity is a permanent feature, not a phase. The craft distillery shakeout (25.6% gone in one year) accelerates—expect the total to shrink by 40–50% from the 2023 peak by 2028. The survivors are brands with DTC (direct-to-consumer) channels, owned occasions, or community-driven acquisition. Large producers absorb market share by default. See detailed forecast below.
| Year | Acquisition Economics | Market Signal |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Crisis deepens | Craft distillery closures accelerate; digital advertising costs continue rising; SGWS and RNDC accelerate dropping underperforming brands from their portfolios |
| 2027 | Shakeout peaks | 40–50% of 2023-peak craft distillers have exited; surviving brands show stronger unit economics; DTC spirits shipping expands to 15–20 states (up from ~10 today) |
| 2028 | New equilibrium | Fewer brands, healthier margins for survivors; community-driven and DTC models prove viable at scale; large producers consolidate market share gains |
Who wins: Large vertically integrated producers (Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Brown-Forman, Beam Suntory) absorb share by default as smaller competitors exit. Among independents, brands with direct consumer relationships—distillery tasting rooms, membership clubs, owned digital communities—survive because their acquisition cost is a fraction of the three-tier-dependent model. The “owned occasion” strategy (a cocktail recipe that pre-selects the brand) emerges as the most capital-efficient path to loyalty.
Who loses: Mid-size brands trapped between craft authenticity and corporate scale—too large for tasting-room economics, too small for distributor priority. Celebrity-backed brands without genuine founder involvement. Any brand whose primary acquisition strategy is paid digital media without a direct path to purchase.
Key risks: Tariff escalation raises costs across the import-dependent categories (tequila, Scotch, Cognac), further pressuring consumer spending. Continued alcohol moderation trends reduce total occasions. If state-level DTC spirits shipping legislation stalls, the most promising alternative acquisition channel remains blocked for the majority of the market.