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Here’s an interesting bit of believable mythology regarding the history of Absinthe. In the 1840’s during the Algerian War, the French soldiers commonly suffered from dysentery. The Army’s solution was to issue opium to the troops because one of its side effects is constipation. But opium was bitter, so they also issued Absinthe to help them make the medicine go down easier. Absinthe also has some anti diarrheal properties of its own. But the soldiers figured out that a “spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” and they put the opium on a lump of sugar, poured cold water over it through a slotted spoon and “Voila” a tasty beverage, the “louche” effect, and regular bowel movements. Well, anyway, that’s the story

Well, it’s begun. The key question I’ve asked myself concerns content and commitment…What to write about and will I keep it flowing? Stay tuned and we’ll find out together.

The initial objective of the BATblog is to put my proverbial money where my mouth is. Author a blog to demonstrate its utility for leveraging brands online; in this case the brand is Brand Action Team.

A developing project I’m passionately involved with is an ecommerce solution for poorly distributed brands. Here’s the deal…new brands, skus and concepts simply don’t have the firepower to get through the bottleneck of distribution to physically get on enough shelves on or off premise. If we accept that premise, then the solution has to be ecommerce. But e-commerce in the US is in, shall we say, a state of flux, and presents more problems than solutions right now.

BUT…and that’s a big but…that’s only true if you think of ecommerce as national or interstate. But as we learned from the articulate Ron Lepow at the US Drinks Conference (www.USDrinksConference.com) exporters coming to the US shouldn’t try to “Paint the states”…in fact, you need to look at the US as “Balkanized”…52 separate entities with unique restrictions, processes and policies.

So a logical and strategic solution which emerges has three key elements: 1) Work with and through existing ecommerce sites that have already solved the problem of selling/shipping in any given state; 2) Incorporate the concept of the “Long Tail” in your market planning (read the book by Chris Anderson of Wired, or read the Cliff’s notes here ( http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail_pr.html ); and 3) well…that’s the BATsecret. We’re on our way with All About Greek Wines to flesh out the strategy (including the BATsecret) which we’ll also make available to our other clients.

…more to come.