What started as a text between college friends, “why can’t you get booze delivered?” bloomed into a scrappy start-up, then eventually, a billion dollar brand.
When I joined Drizly, the brand was experiencing a massive boom. The idea of getting beer, wine, and spirits delivered had always been enticing — but during a global pandemic? It was essential. This put pressure on what was once a small, scrappy start-up to grow up… quickly. I joined the brand team and helped Drizly do just that. We launched a full brand overhaul, examining things like tone of voice, what Drizly is/isn’t, copy rules, how we talk about drinking, our look and feel, photography, illustration style, brand colors — hell, even the logo got a glow up.
Tone of voice — how we cut through the clutter.
One of my first big tasks was to reevaluate Drizly’s brand tone. Drizly’s original tone of voice was irreverent — and it was beloved. But it was also called “fratty,” or “juvenile” at times, and as the company expanded we realized we needed a better set of rules and guides to ensure cohesion across writers, teams, agencies, etc.
So, we took a close look at the brand persona and settled on a new set of four defining traits: offbeat, clever, casual, savvy. We wanted to be seen as experts, not elitist. As pals, not pushy promoters.
We built a brand people love.
The key to our success was that we understood what made Drizly special and even as we grew and changed, we fought to keep those central tenets alive — offbeat, clever, casual — we made sure our marketing always had heart (and sure, the occasional Zoolander joke too).
And then,
we shut it down.
Drizly closed its digital doors in April 2024 and I was honored to write the announcement in a way that felt like us. Or, you know, us after the lawyers had their way with things.
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Creative Directors: Brendan Stephens, Kim Beylin
Senior Copywriter: Jared Jones | Copywriters: Tony Jorgenson, Scott Muska, Mandy Donovan
Senior Designer: Brigita Zabulionyte | Designers: Megan Arenson, Niki Jones, Evan Dodd, Jenn Brigham