INTERNATIONAL. There are just two weeks to go before the culmination of this year’s Hendricks global travel retail campaign for World Cucumber Day (14 June).
To celebrate its signature garnish, Hendrick’s gin and brand owner William Grant & Sons have implemented several quirky activations in key travel retail locations since April. In the final lead-up to World Cucumber Day, promotions are being ramped up and will feature in 50 stores over the next two weeks and, in many cases, on into July and August.
As with last year, Hendrick’s is partnering with The Moodie Davitt Report to celebrate World Cucumber Day. Watch out for your favourite travel retail website looking as you’ve never seen it on 14 June.
High-profile brand activations have been running since March, kicking off at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, and since then featuring at airport locations in Singapore, Shanghai, Auckland, Taoyuan, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Lima, Buenos Aires and Los Angeles.
The next stage of activations will feature interactive experiences primarily based on signature-serve tasting bars and impulse podiums. Key locations include London Gatwick South, Barcelona El Prat, Madrid, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Münich, Brussels, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland and Cancún.
Promotional spaces have also been taken at a number of other airports, including Paris Charles de Gaulle, Dublin, Istanbul Atatürk (arrivals), Houston, Newark and Denver, along with the Blue Water Bridge store on the Canadian/US border and onboard various DFDS ferries.
Critical to World Cucumber Day this year are the 22 ‘Cucumber Curiositarium’ specimens presented in display jars for travellers to discover, wherever they may be. Each specimen has its own character and story and includes: ‘The World’s Smallest Cucumber’ (Specimen No 2); ‘The Flying Cucumber’ (Specimen No 5); and the ‘Explorer Cucumber (Specimen No 6).
To create a point of difference, Hendrick’s has created 14 localised Curiositariums for specific airports, such as ‘The 101 Touring Cucumber’ (Specimen No 8 – Taoyuan); ‘The Flamenco Cucumber’ (Specimen No 11 – Barcelona & Madrid); ‘The Thespian Cucumber’ (Specimen No 14 – Gatwick South); ‘The Kiasu Cucumber’ (Specimen No 18- Changi); and ‘The Galloping Cucumber’ (Specimen No 22- Hong Kong).
A number of ‘unusual and peculiar’ GWP items including fans, playing cards, neck tags and Curiositarium carry cases are available to travellers.
William Grant & Sons Head of Marketing GTR Ifan Jenkins said: “The final countdown to World Cucumber Day is very exciting this year with more airports involved than last year, along with significant locations at sea and on key borders.”
Supporting the curious campaign is a bespoke microsite www.worldcucumberday.com which introduces the reader to ‘the most wondrous of fruits’. Readers can find out about the Cucumber Curiositarium specimens and are invited to play a ‘Catch the cucumber slices’ game.
To join in the World Cucumber Day festivities, use the hash tags #HendricksGin and #WorldCucumberDay.
