“What Happens in Nashville Ends Up on the Blog”
We’d had a custom bourbon bottle made. Engraved. RedeApp branded. Genuinely a nice piece, the kind of conference giveaway people actually keep, that starts a real conversation, that does what a good giveaway is supposed to do.
And then a venue event manager walked over and told us to take it off the table.
The reason, as explained: displaying an unopened bottle of bourbon constitutes an unlicensed alcohol promotion. Someone might grab it and run. They could lose their liquor license. It was complete nonsense, the booth one aisle over had an open bar, but the rule was the rule and the event manager wasn’t moving.
So we went to the UPS store, bought a roll of stretch wrap, and got to work.
We wrapped the bottle. Thoroughly. Stuck a gift bow on it, shoved business cards in around the wrap, tucked in some branded merchandise, and put the whole thing back on the table.
It was, technically, no longer a “displayed bottle of alcohol.” It was a wrapped gift. Obviously a wrapped bourbon bottle, but a gift. The event manager came back, looked at it, and walked away without saying a word. We took that as approval.
The wrapped bottle got more attention than the unwrapped one would have. People stopped to ask about it. We also had glass cleaning cloths with little capes tied around them and business cards tucked in. The whole setup was scrappy in the best possible way.
Here’s the thing: the workaround was better than the original plan. The constraint made it more memorable, not less.
Being resourceful under a dumb rule, not complaining about it, not abandoning the goal, just finding the fastest path to the actual outcome, is something we’re genuinely good at. It’s part of how this company operates. And the customers who end up being the best long-term partners usually see that quality early and recognize it as something they want in their corner.
A bourbon bottle, wrapped in stretch film, business cards tucked in, sitting on a table at a healthcare technology conference in Nashville.
That’s RedeApp. We figure it out.