Sidney Frank Importing Company - he's chairman, and his 57-year-old
daughter, Cathy Halstead, is
president - has to be tireless. The
big conglomerates that dominate the liquor industry dwarf Frank's
company.
France's
Pernod Ricard, which controls Wild Turkey,
Seagram's, Chivas Regal, Chivas, Jameson, and Jacob's Creek wines,
made $4.3 billion last year, whereas
Fortune estimates that
Frank's company, with Grey Goose, made just $350 million in one of
its best years.
Still, Frank outwitted those giants when he brought Grey Goose to
market. That's why Bacardi paid such a hefty price for the brand.
And before Grey Goose ever came along, Frank had done something
that none of the conglomerates had managed before or since: He sold
to American drinkers a product that they didn't want. He sold them
Jägermeister.
WHEN FRANK FIRST began importing Jägermeister in 1974, it
was selling just 600 cases and was almost exclusively consumed by
German immigrants who drank it to settle their stomachs after a
meal. Green and viscous, it's one of those acquired tastes - like
professional ping-pong - that Europeans develop and Americans
don't.
But Frank got lucky in 1985, when some college kids at Louisiana
State University took to drinking Jäger for who knows what reason.
They dubbed it "liquid Valium." Rumors spread: Jägermeister
contained drugs - opium, perhaps. It was made with elk's blood.
That kind of thing. The rumors were untrue, of course. But when a
story about the tall tales appeared in the
Baton Rouge
Advocate, Frank jumped. "I didn't have money for advertising,
so I made millions of copies of that article and spread it all over
the country," he says. Specifically, Frank had his salespeople post
the article in men's rooms at thousands of bars, taping it up at,
well, prime vantage points. "A guy would go down to use the
washroom and then come back to the bar and ask for a Jägermeister.
I had to do guerilla marketing. I had to use my wits."