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# Brandmakers: Botivo’s Imme Ermgassen on Why Pleasure Beats Moderation
- URL: https://www.thesubthread.com/brandmakers-botivos-imme-ermgassen-on-why-pleasure-beats-moderation/
- Published: 2026-10-27T17:47:02.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-27T17:47:02.000Z
- Description: She spent nearly two decades branding Nike, Disney and Diageo. Now Botivo’s Imme Ermgassen is building a non-alcoholic drink that refuses to tell you to cut back.
- Author: Alex Zeevalkink
- Tags: Brandmakers, #Brandmakers-podcast, #Podcast, Brand Building

In this episode of the Brandmakers podcast Hannah is joined by Imme Ermgassen, co-founder of Botivo, the handcrafted British non-alcoholic aperitivo made on a farm in Hertfordshire.

Imme is a strategist by trade, with nearly two decades building brands for Nike, Adidas, Disney, Bacardi and Diageo. When she came across Botivo at a friend’s party, she approached its co-founder Sam Paget Stevenson with a pitch: turn the side project into a global brand. Three years on, it is one of the top sellers in its category in Waitrose and Ocado and is served in 40 of the UK’s top 100 restaurants.

Where almost every brand in the no and low category talks about moderation, holding back and feeling better tomorrow, Botivo does the opposite. It sells pleasure. 

In this conversation, Imme explains the strategist’s playbook behind that decision, why she built the brand before she took the bottle to market, and how a trademark on “The Yellow Hour” fits into a bid to become globally iconic.  

  
For more interviews with the brand marketers behind some of the world's most innovative brands, [check out the full Brandmakers series.](https://www.thesubthread.com/tag/brandmakers/)