Feedback wanted: Community engagement

[MikeDub]

I'm not sure how much value a blender is going to get from community engagement. You could announce that you've come up with a red virginia flake that you selected from the best of the best of 50 different seeds planted a decade ago, and people will swear up and down all you did was take Super Value golden cavendish and dye it red.

Sharing knowledge, the process of blending, effects of adding casings/toppings, and processing the tobacco from seed to tin I think would be interesting. I would certainly check it out I can say that

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I don't think that this guy is a blender...

beginning in April, I begin my dream job working for a world renown Pipe Tobacco producer. My responsibilities will also include market research, trend watching and engaging customers overall. It'll be a challenge, but I'm up to it...

I'm not sure how much value a blender is going to get from community engagement. You could announce that you've come up with a red virginia flake that you selected from the best of the best of 50 different seeds planted a decade ago, and people will swear up and down all you did was take Super Value golden cavendish and dye it red.

Ummm... I think that we definitely have a retarded faction of forum members. People who don't believe anything, or only believe stupid things. But, that doesn't mean that a blender wouldn't add information that the rest of us could learn from.

But, I am not sure what a market research guy is going to be able to add.

 

[ThermionicScott]

I think there is a definite risk/reward consideration for industry types to consider before engaging with the public. When it goes well, knowledge is shared, trust is built, and it's no doubt good for sales. If the person isn't as socially-savvy and ends up tangling with people all day, it damages the brand. And it takes away time from that person's other responsibilities no matter what.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Also, a market research guy would want to keep in mind that forums is a very small niche of the overall market. We are an anomaly, definitely not the majority opinions on pipesmoking.
Aromatics sell the most, but yet, we have very few aromatic smokers here.

We are more the big spender category, with some penny pinching cob freaks thrown in for diversity.

 

[kcghost]

Pipe makers have a presence on just about every forum you can find but they rarely post. They don't mind being told you don't like their product but are sick of posts that state "your product tastes like s**t".

 

[warren]

What are your thoughts on the overall engagement of tobaccco(sic) producers overall in our communities?

About the right level I suppose. If a producer has something of value to add ... great. I'm not sure I want to hear a sales pitch from a "flack" though. If the producer can provide information/answers etc. which are substantive ... go for it.

 

[Oddball]

I'll also add that for my first year or so of Pipery, I had a hard time learning the ins and outs of blends, strains of leaf, blenders, manufacturers, etc etc, etc.... Anyone that helps educate, even if just for their own company, is welcome in my book. Even if you stumble and mumble, Imma listen and engage.

Following Makers, brands, etc is the #1 reason I am on another social media platform, to get shared info from the source.
The Forum is the other side, we the people, so I draw from other experiences here and add my own, but not a ton of maker interaction.

All that being said, all blenders and pipe makers I have reached out too, here or otherwise, have been willing to lend an ear and respond. That always means a lot.

 

[anotherbob]

Sorry, I meant tobacco producers or professional blenders etc.

they run into this weird sense of entitlement a bit too often. The type of person that thinks cause they buy a thing or two that any time the company or blender doesn't cater to their specific wants that it amounts to a terrible criminal affront to human decency.

 

[yanoJL]

Last Christmas I bought a pipe from SP. As part of a holiday promotion, it came with a gift tin of a C&D blend called "Ghost of Christmas Past". I really enjoyed the blend, so I attempted to find another C&D blend with similar ingredients and flavor profile.

I visited the C&D website but was unable to find what I was looking for by clicking around. So I sent an email to the general info address on the website.

About 2 weeks later, I got a reply from Jeremy Reeves. He thanked me for my correspondence, answered my questions and made a few blend recommendations commensurate with my request.

I was definitely not expecting the head blender to reply to me directly; I had no idea my email would be routed to him. But I really appreciated his response.

 

[vosBghos]

If I were the company rep I’d ask how much of a premium you would be willing to pay for such blends. Because the general attitude I’ve seen here is that many are unwilling to pay more than $15 or so for 50g/2oz of a blend they’ve never tried. Would you go to $25/tin? $30?

Rare tobaccos will necessarily require premium prices—maybe even unusually high premium prices if the potential market is small and specialized.

As I'm collecting McClellands Grand Oriental series for at least $65+ a tin , granted you are also getting quality VA with that.
I'd be fine with paying $25+ a tin going in knowing full well I'm truly getting something special and out of the ordinary.
With HH Rustica and the Birds of a feather series some containing Rustica and the novel Katerini Perique being hard to find or sold out in the primary market and reselling for a pretty penny, it seems rare/novel leaf would go for a bit extra.
With all things in capitalism, there is that risk/reward factor, but that other adage "if you build it and they will come" seems true too.

 

[rmbittner]

As I'm collecting McClellands Grand Oriental series for at least $65+ a tin , granted you are also getting quality VA with that.
I'd be fine with paying $25+ a tin going in knowing full well I'm truly getting something special and out of the ordinary.
With HH Rustica and the Birds of a feather series some containing Rustica and the novel Katerini Perique being hard to find or sold out in the primary market and reselling for a pretty penny, it seems rare/novel leaf would go for a bit extra.
With all things in capitalism, there is that risk/reward factor, but that other adage "if you build it and they will come" seems true too.

I wasn’t trying to say that you wouldn’t consider paying whatever the blend cost. Just trying to suggest that perhaps price is why we don’t—or only rarely—see truly rare leaf featured in blends. Glad you seemed to interpret my post the way it was intended.

@cosmicfolklore: I take your point about this forum representing a very small sample size on which to base any kind of judgment. I tend to think that this forum represents the most “engaged” pipe smokers out there, but I can see an argument being made that the people who think nothing of spending $1,000-$2,000 on a pipe or $25/cigar would absolutely be willing to buy the rarest leaf available—and might be the least likely to involve themselves in a forum like this.

 

[MikeDub]

Last Christmas I bought a pipe from SP. As part of a holiday promotion, it came with a gift tin of a C&D blend called "Ghost of Christmas Past". I really enjoyed the blend, so I attempted to find another C&D blend with similar ingredients and flavor profile.

I visited the C&D website but was unable to find what I was looking for by clicking around. So I sent an email to the general info address on the website.

About 2 weeks later, I got a reply from Jeremy Reeves. He thanked me for my correspondence, answered my questions and made a few blend recommendations commensurate with my request.

I was definitely not expecting the head blender to reply to me directly; I had no idea my email would be routed to him. But I really appreciated his response.

That's awesome that you reached out to a producer and got in touch with a blender. I would not have expected that.

C&D is top notch when it comes to customer service

 

[mso489]

I've wondered about this for years; I got here in 2013. I suppose most tobacco professionals don't want to get immeshed in forums, in terms of exciting unwanted attention or disputes. However, if I were involved in marketing or management at all, I would think visiting and reading a few select forums would amount to a freebie focus group.

Marketing people spend a lot of time and money setting these up and conducting the interviews, and though that process may seem more controlled and focused, they are also artificial and bound to elicit all kinds of inauthentic theater from the self-conscious participants.

Whereas scouting this and other pipe and tobacco forums is more or less a field study of pipe smokers as a species. Then the question is, how representative are Forums members, for example. We tend to smoke much more non-aromatic tobacco and much less aromatic. The aromatic market is 90% plus of overall sales. We tend to spend more money on pipes and blends, and mostly we know quite a bit more than the multitudes of pipe smokers, but probably also have a lot more "loose" opinions and biases.

If I were in the business, I'd definitely scout the forums during any available slack time or on my own time, but screening carefully for threads and posts that are pertinent to my job and my decisions. I would do this maybe twice a month -- a little more or a little less depending on my work load otherwise. To ignore this peek inside the mind of at least some of your customers is certainly a missed opportunity.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

Last Christmas I bought a pipe from SP. As part of a holiday promotion, it came with a gift tin of a C&D blend called "Ghost of Christmas Past". I really enjoyed the blend, so I attempted to find another C&D blend with similar ingredients and flavor profile.

I visited the C&D website but was unable to find what I was looking for by clicking around. So I sent an email to the general info address on the website.

About 2 weeks later, I got a reply from Jeremy Reeves. He thanked me for my correspondence, answered my questions and made a few blend recommendations commensurate with my request.

I was definitely not expecting the head blender to reply to me directly; I had no idea my email would be routed to him. But I really appreciated his response.

Silly me, here I thought I had to buy 4 pipes to get 4 tins of those Christmas blends!

 

[bullet08]

Blenders blend and we smoke the blend. What needs to be communicated? If they are looking for specific blend to create for the forum, I'm not understanding the need for talk. If they are giving some web seminar, sure. But they are going to do their thing and we are going to do our thing. Unless something really goes bad, no need for talk?

 

[vosBghos]

I think there is a definite risk/reward consideration for industry types to consider before engaging with the public. When it goes well, knowledge is shared, trust is built, and it's no doubt good for sales. If the person isn't as socially-savvy and ends up tangling with people all day, it damages the brand. And it takes away time from that person's other responsibilities no matter what.

Better to do it under the radar then, maybe have an alias ...oh wait,,,I'll grab my tinfoil hat and see myself out...

 

[rmbittner]

As I’ve thought about the OP’s questions a little more, I’m thinking that the one thing I would really appreciate from blenders is transparency regarding a blend’s contents.

I’m not asking them to share trade secrets or disclose the recipe for whatever “secret sauce” they might use. But I’m particularly sensitive to perique. Others have issues with burley. For others, it’s red Virginias. So it’s helpful to know if those tobaccos are in a blend. (Reviews are often useless here. And the tin often doesn’t go beyond romanticized language that never actually mentions the ingredients.)

So I’d appreciate it if blenders could avoid being coy about what leaf is in their blends and give us enough information on the tin to make an informed choice.

 

[ADKPiper]

Luckily we still have an abundant number of choices available so personally I don't feel the need to make suggestions.
I almost feel like the engagement should come from the tobacco company side if at all.
Keep a sense of what people like. Use that to formulate new offerings.

 

[woodsroad]

Be careful about one-on-one engagement. Unless you show great restraint and discipline, you are mostly setting yourself up as a target.
Talk, listen, respond only when it it beneficial to the brand.

 

[Jacob74]

We've seen how social media has democratized entertainment content. Where there were previously gatekeepers for musicians, artists, moviemakers, authors, etc., social media has blown the doors off those industries, and left a smoking crater where the job market for those gatekeepers was. We recognize that any community of enthusiasts, who collect memorabilia, use products, spend time, energy, and money in support of that community, represent a market of consumers who want content related to their passion.
In our case, we have such a community.
We are seeing more and more content provided, and I think that indicates that there is revenue being generated. There is still room for the ag/production side of this industry to provide unique media content for what is essentially lifestyle luxury goods. We see this all over. Guitars, cars, fine wines and spirits, fashion/beauty/cosmetics, the list goes on and on and on. How well the pipe industry carves (yes, you're welcome) out a revenue generating space remains to be seen!