"Carpe Cerevisi!" with Pintley

I'm a big fan of beer. Wait, let me rephrase - I'm a big fan of well crafted beer. I may have alluded to this before, but there's no harm in a reminder. This week in class, we covered industry-specific social networks, so imagine my delight to find an existing platform like "Pintley!" If you've never heard of it, it's a peer-to-peer network about craft beer.

The Boston-based beer website came to fruition in 2008 after co-founder Tim Noetzel spent time abroad immersed in European beer culture. The platform went public in 2010, targeting the beer lovers of the world by providing a space for users to write reviews and share recommendations. Pintley is also a tool of discovery - learning your tastes, suggesting other beers you'll love, and evolving your taste profile as you supply more information from your drinking experience. 

My Pintley Profile and Beer Recommendations

It's simplistic in appearance and only provides a numerical description. This is especially helpful for those who know little about varying brewing styles, hops, and tasting notes. Pintley clearly relays to consumers, "This, according to a lot of people, tastes good." 

Seems easy enough, right? What's more, its registration process is just as basic. You sign up with an email address or link it to your Facebook profile, log in and start rating beers. Pintley is an important platform mainly for its efforts to change how beer is marketed and sold, by leveraging both small craft brewers, established breweries, and well-known companies like Samuel Adams. On this platform, smaller brands are on the same playing field with big companies. The market share is spread more evenly. 

Overall, I think Pintley has their work cut out for them. There are a number of other similar beer sites and applications with information on local breweries that provide opportunities for discovery, recommendations and social features. On the other hand, Pintley is different from the rest, with its ambitious goal of creating "brand evangelists" who assist brewers build word-of-mouth marketing campaigns. I have a good feeling that if they can get more paying brewing companies to participate, there's a better chance of them standing out from the other players.  

We also talked about proximity marketing this week, and how marketers promote brands to highly targeted, on-location audiences via mobile device. The Pintley staff found a way to cater to consumers demanding products tailored to their tastes with a mobile application. Within the element of proximity marketing, they bring their online network to real-world settings by inviting users to rare beer events, like craft beer launch parties and free local tastings in major cities across the country. Their efforts create a win-win-win for the drinker, brewer, and bar. 

Pintley is much more than a consumer app. It's a content community. Its mobile application features a newsfeed, a Notes section where users can comment on beers and see what friends think, and a forum in which users can discuss any beer-related topic. While the app creates the possibility of consumers helping craft brewers with future product development, shareable social sites like Facebook and Twitter, work well alongside this platform with its integrated marketing communications efforts.