If you feel like all "premium" Scottish whiskies look the same, that every new craft gin comes out with the same minimalist packaging and the same story about forgotten local botanicals, that agricole rums are adopting single malt codes, and that mezcals all present the same discourse on ancestry… you're not mistaken. There's an explanation, and it's deeper than a simple lack of ideas.
Philosopher Benoît Heilbrunn has just published in INfluencia a scathing analysis of the contemporary brand crisis (interview by Isabelle Musnik, April 14, 2026). His thesis can be summarized in one sentence: the current crisis is not a problem of desire, but a complete change of regime. And when applied to our world, the world of bars, distilleries, batch launches, and media campaigns, the diagnosis becomes downright unsettling.
Who is Benoît Heilbrunn?
Heilbrunn is a French philosopher (a real one, not a LinkedIn "brand philosopher") who co-directs the observatory Brands, Consumer Imaginaries, and Politics at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation. He is part of that handful of thinkers who refuse to limit marketing to KPI management. His angle: understanding how brands create (or more often, no longer create) meaning, imagery, and lasting desire.
Suffice it to say he is not particularly kind to the industry. And that is precisely why you should read it.
Spirit Brands Have Become Invisible Due to Being Everywhere
Heilbrunn's formula is beautiful: brands today are what water is to fish. A medium in which one lives, which one no longer sees because one is immersed in it. And the Havas Meaningful Brands 2025-2026 survey (92% of French people believe they could do without brands without it affecting them) does not prove their insignificance: it proves their absorption into the decor.
Let's apply this to our favorite neighborhood bar. Ask a discerning enthusiast to name ten Speyside distilleries. In thirty seconds, it's done. Now ask them what *really* distinguishes Glenfiddich from Glenlivet, beyond the logo and the shelf price. A long silence. We have reached a level of saturation where the objective difference may exist (it does, by the way) but is no longer perceived. It is stifled by the ambient noise.
This is precisely Heilbrunn's point: the multiplication of brands has not produced diversity, it has produced convergence. Same platforms, same formats, same indicators, same tricks. In spirits, the observation is stark: same competitions, same ambassadors moving from brand to brand, same agencies pitching to the same advertisers, same masterclasses with the same slides.
The Real Cause: The Intellectual Impoverishment of Brand Managers
This is THE moment of the interview where Heilbrunn hits the hardest. His thesis: the main explanation for this differentiation crisis is neither economic pressure, nor platforms, nor algorithms. It's the intellectual and cultural impoverishment of those who steer brands (it's not coming from us, we'd rather specify again!).
They all graduate from the same business schools, are trained on the same prescriptive textbooks, and, above all, they no longer read. Or very little. Slides, LinkedIn posts, a few Kantar or Nielsen studies, but hardly any history, social sciences, or literature. Yet imagination, he reminds us, is born from friction with foreign worlds, not from repeating the same benchmarks.
Let's apply this to the sector. Who is steering brands today? Impeccable profiles (HEC, ESSEC, EDHEC), a stint in an agency, then Brand Manager, Marketing Director, Global VP. There's nothing wrong with that. Except that when everyone has exactly the same background, the same references, the same required reading lists (Zero to One, Building a StoryBrand, This Is Marketing) and consults the same firms, the same briefs mathematically produce the same executions. Same "heritage" aesthetic with serif typography and old postcards. Same storytelling around the charismatic Master Distiller. Same visual grammar on Instagram. Same event-driven logic around star bartenders.
The differentiation crisis in spirits brands is first and foremost, as Heilbrunn points out, a crisis of collective imagination.
Storytelling has become a "narrative ripple"
This is probably the most severe formula in the entire interview. Heilbrunn describes contemporary storytelling as a "narrative babble": smooth, tensionless micro-statements with no assumed renunciation. Stories without plot. Brands talk a lot but tell nothing anymore.
Let's take ten press kits for craft gins launched in 2025. You'll find the same template: a passionate founder (often a former executive who quit everything), an initiatory journey (Scotland, Japan, Asia, or South America, it doesn't matter), the discovery of a forgotten aromatic plant, the return home, the deliberate choice of a small artisanal distillery, a first limited series, minimalist packaging designed by a Parisian studio. After ten press kits, you won't even remember which brand you're talking about.
Heilbrunn advocates for a return to storymaking: creating real narratives, with real dramaturgy. Choices, tensions, renunciation. A brand that builds itself over time, not a brand that feeds the post machine with a launch every quarter.
Loyalty or simple retention? The myth that our fans are "loyal"
Another useful kick in the anthill: Heilbrunn deconstructs the myth of customer loyalty by explaining that the industry has deliberately confused loyalty (which implies time, memory, rituals) with retention (which is calculated and optimized through cashbacks, programs, free months).
Look at the contemporary whisky enthusiast. Are they truly loyal to "their" distillery? Let's be honest: they're chasing the next limited edition, the next exotic cask finish, the next high-rated single cask on Whiskybase. Subscription clubs for independent bottlings are booming. Reddit forums dictate quarterly hypes. The collector has become an expert arbitrageur, hopping from one brand to another based on scores, press mentions, and rare bottles.
Innovation or simple novelty: the trap of the infinite cask finish
Heilbrunn makes a critical distinction: innovating is not about adding a feature or releasing a variation. It's about creating a genuine shift in usage, meaning, or perceived value.
In spirits, line extension has been elevated to a religion. New Port wine finish. New triple cask edition. New NAS bottling. New ABV, new artist collaboration, new enameled packaging. Every quarter, every brand releases ITS novelty to feed the specialized press, bars, social networks, and justify the marketing plan's "innovation" line.
The result? A race for novelty that produces the opposite effect of what was intended: the more launches there are, the less memorable the difference. The hype cycle for a limited edition has gone from eighteen months to three weeks. Enthusiasts themselves are starting to disengage, and bartenders, overloaded with samples, no longer know what to keep.
Technology (new fermentation, exotic wood, indigenous yeast, sake barrel finish) often serves, to borrow an insight from Heilbrunn, as symbolic proof without any real effect for the public. It's a polished technological bluff.
The courage to displease: the limit that makes sense
Where Heilbrunn becomes almost political is when he talks about courage. According to him, a brand's meaning is not born from the accumulation of values (authenticity, responsibility, sustainability, impact, diversity, inclusivity) piled up like certificates of good conduct. It is born from concrete, sometimes costly, trade-offs, made in full view. A brand that wants to please everyone becomes insignificant and ends up speaking to no one.
How many spirit brands today make real choices? How many refuse certain markets, certain distribution channels, certain promotions, certain formats? How many embrace a positioning even if it means losing market share in large retail?
The exceptions that come to mind stand out precisely because they are rare. These are brands that have accepted not pleasing everyone in order to continue to matter to a few.
The future of spirit brands: infrastructure or myth
Heilbrunn's conclusion is clear: most brands will lose their mythical function and become mere infrastructure. Less romance, more robustness. An infrastructure brand is a brand that reduces friction, guarantees a standard, and integrates into routines.
Translated into the glass, this is what it looks like: the majority of spirits will become well-oiled commodities. Vodka for Thursday night's Moscow Mule, gin for a G&T on the terrace, mainstream bourbon for a quick Old Fashioned, white rum for a summer Daiquiri. Tool-like brands, efficient, reliable, interchangeable.
But a few brands, very few, will retain a symbolic status. Not because they found the right slogan, the right hashtag, or the right TikTok creator. Because they will have real historical depth, a distinct aesthetic, a genuine cultural contribution. Because they will have chosen, owned, and relinquished at the level of their value, not just "to make a communication splash." And because they will have stopped considering themselves portable religions.
So, concretely, what do we do?
If Heilbrunn's diagnosis applies to spirits, and it applies painfully well, the question is no longer "how to relaunch desire?". It becomes "what place do we want to occupy in this new regime?".
For industrial brands, the first piece of advice: stop overplaying meaning. Meet the basic promise with rigor (consistent quality, fair price, clean distribution, real product responsibility). Own being an excellent commodity. That will already be a lot, and frankly, a strong selling point.
For brands that want to last symbolically: stop stacking values and start making visible choices. Reduce the portfolio. Own stances that exclude. Invest in culture (the real kind: books, films, research, archives, documentaries, conferences, education), not just in activation. Produce meaning without proclaiming it on LinkedIn totems. Leave a trace without organizing metric capture.
For us enthusiasts, bartenders, journalists, and observers? Read, travel, taste blind, discuss, engage with foreign worlds. Resist the mechanics of superficiality. And accept, as a principle of life, that the spirits brands that will matter tomorrow will be those that dared to exist for a few rather than chase after everyone.
Because at heart, a true spirit is like a true book. It's not made to please everyone. It's made to leave a lasting impression on a few.
Source: The full interview with Benoît Heilbrunn by Isabelle Musnik can be read on INfluencia.
