US. Bombay Sapphire super premium gin was one of the key focuses for Bacardi Global Brands at this year’s Duty Free of the Americas show. The company said the brand continues to gain strength with more stores concentrating on value-added offers – such as the combined pack with the Infusion fragrance – in order to grow store penetration and average spend.
Bacardi Global Brands vice president of duty free Jose Chao told The Moodie Report: “The highlight of this year is the general optimism of buyers and the willingness to promote brands aggressively. The focus is on maximising each individual sale with multiple offers.”
“Latin American retailers are willing to invest again. They have all been approaching us in buying mode. The southern border stores have also come back too with a tremendous force, from a position where numbers were down and they were facing traffic congestion [due to security issues].”
The Bombay Sapphire bottle has been updated for a more modern look. It boasts greater colour consistency, with the same distinctive blue glass and a cleaner label. The Infusion packs, combining either the Infusion fragrance or four Infusion candles with Bombay Sapphire 50cl launched late last year, have taken time to be understood in the market. But now the concept is working well to promote the core elements of the botanicals in the gin’s recipe the company said.
The rejuvenation of Bombay Sapphire is also being supported by a lot of inflight advertising and airline activity such as a Virgin Atlantic promotion featuring bar tenders onboard certain daytime routes, pouring in exective lounges and even a Bombay Sapphire fish tank. DFS is reported to have doubled its orders for Bombay Sapphire and Asian retailers generally found a good response to the Infusion-Bombay Sapphire concept, where consumers are seemingly quick to take up new ideas. The concept has also worked well in the US West Coast and in other airports where Asian consumers are important.
“European retailers adopted a wait and see approach and the concept was slower to develop,” said Chao.
Bacardi Global Brands has also hired California Export to conduct product demonstrations in US airports. Some retailers that have seen true value in the the Infusion-Bombay Sapphire concept have put it into both liquor and perfumery areas. But in other airports such as DFS in Hong Kong, the liquor concessionaires were not allowed to bring it in – due to contract restrictions.
“We are not in the fragrance business,” said Chao. “It needs great execution and there were a lot of moving parts in the orchestration. Asian consumers in particular were attracted by the luxury and they were enticed to buy it. The split of sales is 50:50 male and female and that is very positive.”
Meanwhile Bacardi 8 year old continues to be the dominant product and attention in Orlando last week inevitably fell on the very premium looking Bacardi twin pack, which is a travel retail exclusive.
‘The Art of a Passionate Life’ gwp promotion and ‘The Bacardi Experience’ tasting programme which ran with World Duty Free, Kiev Duty Free and other key locations is likely to be repeated this year. For Dewar’s Scotch, the striking contemporary striped packaging is going onto shelves now with a design that more closely links the Dewar’s 12 year old and standard reference. Dewar’s continues to grow with partnership programmes such as one that run successfully at World Duty Free last year. More and more top sellers working for travel retailers in the whisky category are being invited to the Dewar’s distillery in Scotland.
Travel retail enquiries to Jose Chao at email jbchao@bacardi.com or Ylva Persson global marketing director, travel retail at email: ypersson@bacardi.com
