In a growing sea of new competition to the market, New Riff Distilling tapped PB&J to help bring a new sensibility to the growing brand. Founded in 2014 by Ken Lewis, a visionary Kentucky liquor retailer and entrepreneur, New Riff set out on a singular mission: to someday be counted among the world’s great small distilleries.  

The brand’s crafted excellence within the Cincinnati market was well-known with opportunity to create stronger regional community connections with like-minded lifestyle business, personalities, and the media. Our strategy involved targeting key feeder markets where opportunity to support the growth of the distribution and expansion plans could be met with excitement from the media landscape.  

Our amplification efforts involved harnessing a new brand messaging framework with a cohesive tone and animating the unconventional brand character to bring the brewery ethos to the people through experiential elements including exclusive media tasting sessions, pop-up events, and media placements as well as focusing on the founder story through thought leadership opportunities within business and lifestyle outlets with targeted stories of the New Riff brand coupled with the inspirational story of the internal team ‘behind the bottle’.