Last night the team at Antler Agency hosted their first ever “What’s Brewing” event. Aside from a coriander and orange peel beer being brewed on site and bottles of the first ever Antler brew for audience members to take home, the What’s Brewing discussion focused on how social media and technology are allowing traditional, older industries to engage with young consumers.

The two sectors focused on in this session were politics and the wine industry. Antler Agency’s President and CEO  Terry Lozoff moderated the talk-show-like discussion with guests Brian Reich, former advisor to Vice President Al Gore, and Tyler Balliet, co-founder and President of Second Glass.

Politics Meets Social Media, Technology

Reich kicked off the conversation by stating that the Internet and technology is changing everything. Having spent the majority of his life working in and around politics, Reich affirmed that what he has been seeing across the board is greater engagement around political issues now than ever before thanks to technology.

And while optimistic, Reich voiced that his biggest concern about the convergence of technology and politics is that people are not properly using the tools available to engage substantively. Reich shared, “Technology has created a whole shift at the way we look at politics … The problem is we’re not shifting in the right way. We’re shifting to viral videos and 140 characters and not in a substantive way.” He went on to describe that despite increased activity, there is still a lack of demonstrable results in actually moving the conversation around issues. Reich drove the point home by stating, “It’s not about the pipe, it’s about what goes through it.”

When Lozoff asked about the current Administration’s use of social media, Reich laid the foundation of the discussion by sharing how painstakingly slow the process of government acquisition of technology really is. Moving on to describe some of the benefits, he pinned down in particular how leveraging social media and new technology channels means candidates and administrations no longer have to rely on the media to tell their story.

While applauding President Obama’s use of social media during the campaign, Reich challenged that he has not taken advantage of the tools available to sustain the connection and really elevate the conversation around issues. “When you’re the President you have substance … If he wanted to talk about substance he could and people would listen.”

Wine Industry Meets Social Media, Technology

With Reich leaving words of advice to political pundits and activists to stop preaching the benefits of social media and start actually engaging, Tyler Balliet joined him on the couch. Balliet has built a company around connecting wineries directly with young consumers through fun, exploratory tasting events and the use of technology. Balliet spoke to the history of the wine industry in the States, the business opportunity for Second Glass, as well as to the future of the industry.

With wine sales growing exponentially over the last decade and a half and with over a million labels on the market, Balliet observed first hand working in a wine shop that the majority of the market was overwhelmed by choice. And what’s more, they only wanted to learn a little bit more about wine and not a lot. Customers weren’t asking if this Burgundy in this year was good, they were asking questions like ‘what’s burgundy?’ “23% of people who drink on a regular basis won’t purchase wine because there’s too many options. So they go straight for the beer shelves,” he said.

Balliet went on to describe the three-tiered nature of the wine industry, in part a genesis of prohibition, where wineries must sell to distributors who then sell to restaurants and retailers, for example, who then sell to the consumer. Lozoff inquired about there then being opportunity for wineries to connect directly with consumers over social media to create demand for their product. Balliet agreed, but went on to explain how critical it is to combine that story telling and use of social media with the actual tasting of wine. “Social can play a big part in helping, but just a part. You have to taste the wine first before you’re going to buy it, so the opportunity is really in combining the two.”

Lozoff asked Balliet to describe the state of social media with wineries. Balliet shared that the majority of the 6500 wineries in the U.S. are not effectively leveraging social media and technology at all. Balliet explained that wineries know they need to, but are lost in how they should go about doing it. Part of the issue is that very few wineries make a lot of money where they can justify, for example, having their 1 sales person that manages 45 states start also managing social media channels. Balliet gave a big shoutout to Westport Rivers, however, as an example of a local winery creatively using videos and social media to create community around their wines.

Check out some photos from What’s Brewing below:

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Thank you to Antler Agency for inviting us and organizing such a great event.