VIBE 2018

Mike Ginley
Founder/CEO
Next Level Marketing


Mike is widely recognized as a passionate champion of the beverage industry, After earning his MBA in Marketing from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Mike began his Marketing career brand management positions with Tetley Tea, Kraft General Foods and Campbell Soup Company. He joined the Spirits industry with Heublein (now Diageo) as a Brand Manager for Jose Cuervo Tequila where he launched the award winning Jose Cuervo Ready To Drink Margaritas shipping over 1 million cases in under 120 days. Mike was promoted to Category Manager of Imported Spirits, where he managed Finlandia Vodka, Famous Grouse Scotch and Highland Park Single Malt. He reversed volume declines on Finlandia Vodka and helped make it the World’s Fastest Growing Spirit Brand. Mike joined Allied Domecq as Global Marketing Director for Sauza Tequila and again helped to reverse a negative volume trend to make Sauza the World’s Fastest Growing Spirit for 1997. He was promoted to Vice President of On-Premise Sales for Allied Domecq leading its award winning national accounts team and creating the renowned, 50-person First Choice team to manage the company’s top 5,000 independent on-premise accounts. Mike’s leadership helped his team to be recognized by Cheers as the industry’s Best On-premise Supplier an unprecedented three years in a row. In 2005, Mike founded Next Level Marketing, marketing agency dedicated to building premium beverage brands through Brand Ambassador programs, national sampling programs, special events and consulting services. Next Level is one of the industry’s leading brand activation agencies employing 100 full-time Brand Ambassadors, 3,000 promotional models and executing over 40,000 consumer sampling events across 40 states. Mike recently discussed his brand building philosophy on The Fox Business Network’s WorldWide Business Show as requiring Passion, Planning, Performance, Patience, and Persistence.

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