The $9 Billion Question: Innovating Distillery Experiences with JTBD
Drive Loyalty, Revenue, and Differentiation in the Booming Spirits Tourism Market
Table of Contents
What Job Are Visitors Really Hiring Your Distillery For? (The JTBD Core)
Innovating the Experience: Getting the Job Done Better (Today & Tomorrow)
Don’t miss the BONUS link at the bottom 👇
Distillery tourism is booming. In regions like Kentucky, it's blossomed into a significant economic driver, hinting at a multi-billion dollar global potential when considering Scotland, Japan, Ireland, and countless craft distilleries worldwide. Yet, despite this enthusiasm, how many distillery visits genuinely transcend the expected? The "digital revolution" hasn't just changed how we book travel; it's fundamentally altered visitor expectations. Today's consumers, across demographics, seek more than just a passive tour; they crave personalization, authenticity, engagement, and increasingly, alignment with their values regarding sustainability.
The core problem? Many distilleries still operate on a legacy model – a standardized walk-through, a brief, often crowded tasting, and a gift shop exit. This approach, while traditional, frequently fails to capture the maximum potential value. It risks leaving visitors feeling underwhelmed, failing to convert initial interest into lasting brand loyalty, and ultimately, leaving significant revenue untapped. Relying on heritage alone isn't enough in a market demanding deeper connection and richer experiences.
This is where Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) emerges as a powerful strategic lens. By shifting our focus from the activity (the tour) to the visitor's underlying goal or the progress they are trying to make, we can uncover unmet needs with startling clarity. JTBD allows distilleries to strategically integrate emerging technologies, authentic sustainability practices, and meaningful personalization not as disjointed initiatives, but as targeted solutions to help visitors achieve their desired outcomes more effectively.
In this comprehensive exploration, we'll dissect the crucial "Jobs" visitors hire a distillery experience for. We'll map the friction points in the traditional journey—including the challenge of presenting genuinely unique value when core processes seem similar—and unveil how innovative solutions (from AI/AR to curated multi-site journeys and sustainability) can create unforgettable, high-value engagements. It's time to look beyond the barrel and architect the future of distillery tourism.
What Job Are Visitors Really Hiring Your Distillery For? (The JTBD Core)
Jobs-to-be-Done theory, pioneered by academics like Clayton Christensen and refined by practitioners like Tony Ulwick, pushes us beyond demographics and product features. It demands we ask: What progress is the visitor trying to make by 'hiring' our distillery experience? Understanding this "Job" is the absolute foundation for meaningful innovation.
Visitors aren't just buying entry; they're seeking progress towards a goal. These Core Jobs can be functional, experiential, or emotional, and often blend together:
Ascertain the quality, unique profile, and value of spirits to confidently inform purchase decisions (now or later).
Experience the authentic craft, story, passion, and heritage behind a spirit or brand to foster a deeper, more meaningful connection.
Socialize, celebrate, bond, or be entertained in a distinctive, memorable, and engaging environment.
Expand personal knowledge and appreciation of spirits, the distillation process, or regional nuances (like the specific terroir of Scottish single malts or the meticulous craft in Japanese whisky).
Discover new, interesting, or exclusive spirits that are difficult to find or evaluate elsewhere.
Align their patronage with brands reflecting their values, particularly regarding sustainability and ethical production (an increasingly important emotional/identity job).
Identifying the primary Job(s) is step one. Step two is breaking them down into specific, measurable Desired Outcomes. These are the metrics visitors subconsciously use to evaluate success. Using the JTBD outcome statement format (Direction + Metric + Object + Context):
Minimize the effort required to plan and book a visit that meets my specific interests and schedule.
Increase the ease of navigating the distillery environment upon arrival.
Maximize the feeling of personal connection to the brand's unique story, heritage, or values during the experience.
Increase the relevance of the information presented based on my existing knowledge level (e.g., beginner vs. connoisseur).
Minimize the time spent in crowded or impersonal group settings.
Minimize the feeling of learning redundant information across multiple distillery visits within the same category.
Increase the ability to savor, compare, and evaluate different spirit profiles effectively during tasting.
Maximize the understanding of how sustainability practices impact the final product and brand ethos.
Reduce the difficulty in identifying and remembering spirits liked during the tasting for later recall or purchase.
Increase the confidence in selecting a spirit purchase that truly aligns with personal taste preferences.
Increase the ease of sharing the positive experience with others (social sharing, recommendations).
Focusing on these outcomes—understanding which are most important to your target visitors and least satisfied by current offerings—pinpoints the most fertile ground for innovation.
This integrated tech stack empowers me to do the work of many, all from one place. Find out how it multiplies my efforts as a solopreneur.
Mapping the Current Journey: Tradition Meets Friction
Let's trace the typical visitor journey, acknowledging that while specifics vary (a sprawling Kentucky campus vs. a compact urban distillery), common friction points often emerge:
Discovery & Booking: Finding information online, attempting to schedule.
Friction: Clunky websites, opaque scheduling, lack of customization options, unclear tour descriptions lacking appeal beyond the functional.
Underserved Outcomes: Minimize booking effort; Increase clarity of options; Increase ability to tailor the visit upfront.
Arrival & Welcome: Finding the location, check-in, waiting.
Friction: Poor signage, impersonal check-in, waiting areas lacking engagement, delays.
Underserved Outcomes: Minimize arrival anxiety; Reduce unproductive waiting time.
The "Tour": The guided walk-through and explanation.
Friction: Generic scripts, information overload (or underload), inability to hear/interact. Balancing authentic heritage with engagement. Crucially, content redundancy becomes a major issue for informed visitors or those touring multiple sites. As industry observers like Dr. Maya Chen (highlighted in the 'Spirits of Innovation' research) might note, while nuances exist, "the fundamental distillation process... shares core principles. Visitors touring multiple facilities might experience diminishing returns on learning after the second or third explanation." This repetition fails the Job of expanding knowledge effectively.
Underserved Outcomes: Increase information relevance; Maximize engagement; Maximize connection to brand story/values; Minimize perceived redundancy of core process information.
The Tasting: Sampling the spirits.
Friction: Rushed process, limited variety/pours, lack of context (food, comparison flights), crowded environment, difficulty tracking preferences.
Underserved Outcomes: Minimize feeling rushed; Increase ability to evaluate effectively; Maximize understanding of profiles; Reduce difficulty tracking favorites.
Purchase Opportunity: The gift shop transition.
Friction: Pressure to buy, stock limitations, forgetting preferences, lack of shipping/future purchase options.
Underserved Outcomes: Increase ease of purchasing preferred spirits; Minimize decision pressure.
Post-Visit: Leaving the premises.
Friction: Abrupt end to the experience, lack of follow-up, difficulty ordering later, brand connection quickly fades.
Underserved Outcomes: Increase ease of future engagement/purchase; Maximize lasting brand connection.
Mapping this journey against desired outcomes starkly reveals where traditional models—especially those relying on repetitive process explanations—often fall short.
Innovating the Experience: Getting the Job Done Better (Today & Tomorrow)
Armed with JTBD insights, innovation becomes targeted. It's about systematically addressing underserved outcomes through a blend of enhanced execution, smart technology, and forward-thinking concepts, including rethinking the very structure of the tour itself.
A. Near-Term Wins: Enhancing the Present
These focus on leveraging existing capabilities and technologies more effectively to directly address common pain points:
Intelligent Personalization: Use booking data/questionnaires to tailor content, tasting flights, and guide focus towards specific interests. Addresses: Increase relevance.
Seamless Digital Layer: User-friendly booking, QR codes for deeper content/saving favorites, simple AR overlays via smartphones. Addresses: Minimize friction, Reduce tracking difficulty.
Elevated Sensory Tastings: Design tastings as true sensory explorations with curated flights, food pairings, quality glassware, and dedicated staff. Addresses: Increase evaluation ability, Maximize understanding, Minimize rushing.
Frictionless Commerce: Integrate digital "saved favorites" with easy on-site and post-visit online ordering/shipping. Addresses: Increase purchase ease, Minimize pressure.
Meaningful Sustainability Communication: Authentically showcase sustainable practices (water use, sourcing, waste reduction) as part of the brand story and commitment to quality. Addresses: Maximize connection to values.
Curated Comparative Journeys (Addressing Redundancy): Instead of every distillery repeating the basics, consider collaborative regional passes or structured tours that focus on differentiation. As suggested by the insight about process similarity, perhaps a baseline tour covers the fundamentals once, then subsequent visits within a curated trail focus specifically on what makes each distillery unique (e.g., yeast strains, fermentation times, still shapes, maturation techniques, specific sustainability innovations). This respects visitor time and better serves the Job of "Expand Knowledge" and "Ascertain Unique Appeal." Addresses: Minimize information redundancy, Increase relevance, Maximize understanding of differentiation.
B. Future-Forward Concepts: Redefining the Experience (Higher Abstraction)
These concepts leverage emerging tech and new models to get the visitor's core Job done in fundamentally better, more efficient, or entirely novel ways:
AI-Driven Hyper-Contextualization: AI dynamically adjusting info, suggesting micro-tastings, or co-creating cocktail recipes based on visitor profiles and interactions. Job Elevation: "Engage in a personalized spirit discovery dialogue."
Immersive & Augmented Environments: Dedicated AR tasting rooms visualizing flavor compounds or VR distillery "visits" accessible globally. Job Elevation: "Immerse oneself in the spirit's world."
Data-Driven Sensory Insights: Using sensors (with opt-in) during tastings to help visitors understand their palate profile objectively. Job Elevation: "Understand my personal palate profile."
Modular & On-Demand Access: Visitors constructing their own journey from a menu of bookable, focused modules (maturation deep dive, blending session). Job Elevation: "Construct a learning and tasting experience."
Integrated Sustainability Ecosystem: Visitors actively participating in or choosing based on transparent sustainability initiatives (reforestation, water footprint data). Job Elevation: "Participate in brand values."
Seamless Ecosystem Integration: The visit acting as a catalyst for ongoing personalized engagement (content, offers, subscriptions). Job Elevation: "Enter a continuous brand relationship."
These future states excel by focusing intensely on the visitor's underlying Job, leveraging technology and new models to achieve those goals more effectively.
Building Your Differentiated Strategy: A JTBD Roadmap
Transitioning requires a deliberate, strategic approach:
Deep Visitor Understanding (JTBD Research): Conduct qualitative interviews focused on visitor goals, struggles, circumstances, and desired outcomes (including frustrations with redundancy). Listen for the "why."
Quantify the Opportunity: Survey visitors to measure importance vs. current satisfaction for key outcomes (e.g., how important is minimizing redundant info vs. current satisfaction?). Prioritize the biggest gaps.
Targeted Ideation: Brainstorm solutions specifically addressing prioritized outcomes. How can curated trails minimize redundancy? How can AR maximize connection to heritage without repeating basics?
Integrate Innovation Streams: Develop a cohesive strategy weaving tech, sustainability, personalization, and structural tour changes (like comparative journeys), guided by JTBD priorities.
Pilot, Iterate, Measure: Start with near-term wins (perhaps piloting a curated trail segment). Test future concepts with prototypes. Measure impact on satisfaction, conversion, loyalty, and crucially, qualitative feedback on the experience's depth and uniqueness.
Distilling Your Future Success
The distillery experience is at a fascinating inflection point. Applying the Jobs-to-be-Done framework provides the crucial strategic clarity needed to navigate this evolution successfully. It pushes us beyond just showcasing production to truly understanding and serving visitor goals.
By focusing intently on the progress your visitors seek, you can move beyond generic offerings that suffer from repetition. JTBD illuminates the path to thoughtfully integrating technology, embedding sustainability, delivering personalization, and even restructuring the tour format itself to create comparative value. This isn't about abandoning heritage; it's about enhancing it, making it more accessible, engaging, and genuinely insightful. It’s about designing experiences that don't just showcase your spirit, but create profound connection, demonstrate unique value, and build lasting loyalty. Distill your strategy, focus on the Job, and uncork your future success.
Ready for the visual deep dive? Check out this research report I created to prepare for this post.
🚨🚨🚨 BONUS MATERIAL 🚨🚨🚨
Distillery Tour Experience Research 👈
Now, over to you:
Have you experienced "tour fatigue" from hearing similar process explanations at multiple distilleries? Would a tour focused on differentiation be more appealing?
What emerging technology (AI, AR, VR, etc.) are you most excited—or skeptical—about seeing integrated into distillery experiences?
How much do a distillery's sustainability practices influence your decision to visit or purchase their products?
Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!
Why Am I Writing So Much?
I want you to see that while JTBD is a method, the more important thing is that it can be applied to almost every time of problem. You have a choice; you can spend years listening to someone preach about how to do a small part of it, or you can inspire yourself to dive in and solve problems that are never talked about in this small community. Let’s make this community larger.
If you’d like to take action, I would love to help. Here’s are some steps you can take to make that a reality for us:
Join my community and get access to more content and tools
Apply for coaching so we can do projects together and build a new business-as-usual with someone who will share the knowledge, and hold you accountable. (I have limited seats so hurry!)
I do project work as well. Use the coaching link and we can discuss.
Why Me?
I’ve been trained by the best in Outcome-Driven Innovation. Part of that training involved how to understand what the future should look like. As a result, I’ve taken what I’ve learned and begun innovating so I can get you to the outcomes you’re seeking faster, better, and even more predictably. Anyone preaching innovation should be doing the same; regardless of how disruptive it’ll be.
How am I doing this?
I’ve developed a complete toolset that accelerates qualitative research to mere hours instead of the weeks or months it used to take. It’s been fine-tuned over the past 2+ years and it’s second-to-none (including to humans). That means we can have far more certainty that we’ve properly framed your research before you invest in a basket of road apples. They don’t taste good, even with whipped cream on top.
I’m also working on a completely new concept for prioritizing market dynamics that predict customer needs (and success) without requiring time-consuming and costly surveys with low quality participants. This is far more powerful and cost effective than the point-in-time surveys that I know you don’t want to do!
I believe that an innovation consultant should eat their own dog food. Therefore, we must always strive to:
Get more of the job done for our clients
Get the job done better for our clients
Get the job done faster for our clients
Get the job done with with fewer features for our clients
Get the job done in a completely different and novel way for our clients
Get the job done in a less costly manner for our clients
You could be an early tester of the latest developments, but at a minimum take advantage of an approach that is light years ahead of incumbent firms that are still pitching a 30 year old growth strategy process.
All the links you need are a few paragraphs up. Or set up some time to talk … that link is down below. 👇🏻
Mike Boysen - www.pjtbd.com
Why fail fast when you can succeed the first time?
📆 Book an appointment: https://pjtbd.com/book-mike
Update your small business tech stack: https://effectivecrm.ai/gohere
Buffalo Trace does an exceptional tour.