In 1977, Jimmy Buffett released his most popular song, “Margaritaville.”
He may not have known it then, but with the track, Buffett planted the seeds for a business empire.
While the idea of an experiential lifestyle brand feels new, Buffett’s team at Margaritaville Holdings has been leveraging the strategy for years and has built a hospitality juggernaut in the process, per Skift.
… started in 1985, when Buffett opened a retail store with the name. The real breakthrough came in 1999, when Buffett and business partner John Cohlan opened a 20k-square-foot Margaritaville restaurant at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.
Rampant expansion followed, and the brand’s portfolio now includes:
Across those entities, the company brought in $1.5B in sales in 2019.
According to Cohlan, now the CEO of Margaritaville Holdings, it’s all about emotion.
“Margaritaville was a synonym for paradise and casual fun, and the brand generates an emotion that makes you feel good,” Cohlan told Skift.
With that in mind, the team is laser-focused on the brand’s aesthetic, using several design staples in every location, including:
Each lobby also contains a replica of the Statue of Liberty, but with Lady Liberty holding a margarita instead of a torch.
… to bottle a feeling and build a brand with it. The Grateful Dead are still pulling in millions off of a variety of revenue streams, even though the original band members played their last show together in 1995.
For more on the Grateful Dead’s business genius, check out Hubspot co-founder Brian Halligan’s book, Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead.