Drinks Advocacy: it’s time to reinvest in people, not likes.

Walk into any marketing suite today and you’ll hear the word “advocacy” thrown around like a silver bullet. We talk about it in terms of activating advocates as if they were machines, and leveraging loyalty as if it were a commodity. This is not the essence of drinks advocacy.

But here is the uncomfortable truth: if your advocacy strategy feels like a transaction, your audience will treat it like an ad. And in a world where 75% of consumers recognise a brand by its logo but 79% of Gen Z make purchases based on human recommendations (Zippia 2025), the “ad” is no longer enough.

So, what are we getting wrong?

We’re mistaking ‘Reach’ for ‘Relationship’

The biggest trap brands fall into is the “influencer hangover.”

We’ve been conditioned to look for the biggest follower counts rather than the deepest connections. Data from 2024 shows that while engagement on broad social feeds is declining, advocacy in private, high-trust communities is rising (Duel 2025).

​Brands often recruit for the wrong reasons. We look for someone with a pretty feed, give them a script, and wonder why the needle doesn’t move. True advocacy is built on professional credibility. 

This is especially true in the trade and drinks industries, where the Brand Ambassador role originated.

A bartender with 500 followers who is respected by their peers is worth infinitely more to your bottom line than a lifestyle creator with 50,000 followers who couldn’t tell you the difference between a pot still and a column still. Advocacy is about authority, not just visibility.

The Incentive Trap: Prizes vs. Purpose

Many brands make the mistake of launching programs with too many prizes (SocialToaster 2025).

If you lead with freebies, you’ll recruit people who love freebies, not people who love your brand. When the rewards stop, the advocacy stops.

​The data is clear: 80% of a company’s future revenue will come from just 20% of its existing customers.

If you treat that 20% like a street team to be bought with swag, you’re missing the chance to turn them into a commercial powerhouse. At The Brand Ambassador Academy, we see this often: brands forget that the most powerful incentive for a professional brand ambassador isn’t a gift card, it’s career development.

When you invest in an advocate’s skills, helping them become a commercially trained industry leader, you aren’t just buying a post; you’re building a partner.

The “Canned Content” Conundrum

We’ve all seen it: Ten different “ambassadors” posting the same corporate-approved image with the same “I’m so excited to partner with…” caption. It’s the death of trust.

​Research suggests that personalised calls-to-action convert 200% better than generic ones (Firework 2025). When brands provide a rigid script, they strip the advocate of their greatest asset: their unique voice. The mistake is trying to control the narrative too tightly.

Instead of a script, give them a strategic framework. Educate them on the why behind the brand, and then get out of the way. If they are truly experts, they will find a way to make your brand relevant to their community that no copywriter in a corporate office ever could.

The Silo Effect: Marketing vs. Trade

Perhaps the most damaging mistake is treating advocacy as a “Marketing Channel” in isolation. This leads to inaccurate budget allocation and missed ROI.

Advocacy should be the link between sales, trade, and marketing.

​In the drinks industry, an ambassador isn’t just a face; they are the frontline storyteller and a crucial link in trade marketing. When brands fail to integrate their advocates into the wider business strategy, they lose the vital feedback loop. Your advocates are your ears on the ground. If they are only being used to shout, you are missing 50% of the value they bring in market intelligence.

​The Educational Shift: How to Fix It

To repair advocacy, we need to stop looking at it as a cost centre and start looking at it as a talent development play.

​Move from ‘Influencers’ to ‘Leaders’: Focus on training.

Whether they are internal staff or external partners, equip them with theoretical understanding and practical application. A commercially savvy ambassador understands your P&L, not just your Pantone colour.

​Prioritise Long-Term Co-creation: Move away from one-off sponsorships. The brands that will win in 2026 are those that treat creators as partners in long-term co-creation (Duel 2025).

​Humanise the Response: Stop using PR-speak. If 2025 was the year brands lost control of their stories, 2026 is the year to take them back by participating in the conversation, not just broadcasting to it.

The Learning

Advocacy isn’t about what you can get people to say for you; it’s about what you can empower people to do with you.

​The most successful brands today are those that realise their greatest asset isn’t their product, but the community of professionals who believe in it.

If you want to get advocacy right, stop asking how many likes a post got and start asking how many leaders you’ve built.

Because when you invest in the person, the advocacy, and the commercial growth that follows, becomes inevitable.

​Don’t just build a program. Build the next generation of Brand Ambassadors

That is the only advocacy strategy that survives the skip ad era.

Nate Sorby is the founder of Elementary Trade Marketing, a boutique agency aligning trade strategy with commercial growth for spirits and wine brands and The Brand Ambassador Academy, a training platform developing the next generation of skilled brand advocates.