CHINA. Whyte & Mackay and China Duty Free Group (CDFG) will tomorrow unveil a hugely ambitious pop-up and immersive customer experience for the distiller’s best-selling single malt Scotch whisky The Dalmore.
The pop-up at the CDFG-run Sanya International Duty Free Shopping Complex runs through October starting from National Day (1 October) and celebrates the ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ single malt collection The Dalmore Decades, as well as the recently launched Ensemble Collection and the brand’s rare and aged whiskies.
The activation is linked to a major digital amplification campaign designed to bring the launch to a vast audience outside the store.
[This short clip offers a sneak preview of the pop-up. We will bring you photos and video of the live version in coming days.]
As reported, The Dalmore Decades is a celebration of the creators and stories behind each bottle. Whyte & Mackay is releasing only three collections of The Dalmore Decades in very limited quantities: The No.6 Collection, the No.5 Collection and the No.4 Collection, of which a small number of sets will be available through select travel retailers.
The No.5 Collection contains five of The Dalmore Decades whiskies from 1967, 1979, 1980, 1995 and 2000. Five sets (out of 15) of the No.5 Collection are being launched in travel retail, including CDFG in Hainan and Duty Zero by CDF at Hong Kong International Airport (click here for information on other locations). The No.5 Collection is priced at US$270,000.
The No.4 Collection contains four of The Dalmore Decades whiskies from 1979, 1980, 1995 and 2000. Four sets (out of 25) from the No.4 Collection are available in travel retail through CDFG in Hainan and Lotte Duty Free at Incheon International Airport. The No.4 Collection is priced at US$135,000.
“We chose Hainan because China is one of our key targets and the location gives us access to a huge traveller base,” Whyte & Mackay Travel Retail Director Richard Trimby told The Moodie Davitt Report.
“But it’s not just about what we can do in the store anymore – particularly with the pandemic and the lack of travel at airports, we’ve had to focus much more on digital. And we expect to reach around 30 million consumers just with the travel retail part of The Dalmore Decades programme.”
Whyte & Mackay Head of Marketing Global Travel Retail & Emerging Markets Clarisse Daniels added: “The purpose is to bring this unique collectible set to life to as many consumers as possible. Global travel retail is a perfect channel to do that because partnering with the right customers allows us to reach this upscale traveller with speed and scale.”
Underlining The Dalmore’s high-end credentials, the pop-up is sited within in the luxury section of the Sanya International Duty Free Shopping Complex. Whyte & Mackay is amplifying the campaign via digital media in an attempt to capture the Chinese traveller on their journey to Hainan and to build awareness of The Dalmore in the China local market.
The campaign is also leveraging the vast reach of CDFG’s acclaimed social media channel. A key opinion leader will also film the pop-up and the opening ceremony.
“Through that digital campaign, we’re going to reach an additional 17 million Chinese consumers beyond the store,” said Daniels. “So that’s the joy of the duty free and travel retail channel at the moment – it’s doing a lot more than what a domestic market could do.”
“This is the biggest global campaign for The Dalmore that we’ve done across multiple markets [including domestic], with all happening simultaneously,” said Trimby. “And travel retail is centre stage.”
The inspiration and overarching theme of the pop-up is of a five-star contemporary hotel setting. Trimby continued: “In a luxury hotel you have a piece of art in the lobby and that piece of art will be The Dalmore Decades sets. And every luxury hotel has a beautiful bar, so this will lead to a Dalmore bar.
“There are multiple engagement points. So first of all we’ll have an opening ceremony with a local celebrity brand ambassador well-known within the world of whiskey in China doing tastings of the Ensemble Collection on the opening day. The bar will also allow us to sample consumers throughout the month of October during the event.”
Consumers will be encouraged to take selfies in a perfectly lit setting and disseminate via their own social media platforms. The opening ceremony will feature live musicians who play the original bespoke compositions commissioned to honour the Ensemble collection range.
Trimby added: “Inside you will see a display of our beautiful collections and the iconic Dalmore stag. We will also have a prestige wall featuring our rare and aged collections. We will also have an Ensemble Collection launch stage, another engagement featuring some directional speakers and depending on whether the consumer selects the Trio, Quartet or Quintet, then a different film and music will play.
“So it’s a multi-sensory pop-up really guaranteed to drive, entertain, educate and create social decision for the Chinese consumer.
“While Decades is the overall campaign, for us this is an opportunity to put The Dalmore on the stage, to get people to come and see this work of art and then to experience the whole Dalmore world within that pop-up shop.”
“This campaign is part of the whole trend towards digital. It has been accelerated by COVID which has been a catalyst for innovation in the industry. We’ve always been wanting people to experience our brands. And it’s now about how you do that? Before it was all about liquid on lips in a bar. But how many people do you reach through that?
[Whyte & Mackay, owner of The Dalmore, Jura and Fettercairn single malt Scotch whiskies, is getting ready for a very different kind of lift-off at the Virtual Travel Retail Expo from 11 to 15 October. We offer you a tantalising sneak preview.]
“If you think about the millions who travel, that was always a great thing for travel retail. But now we can access people even when they’re not travelling. We had to do that last year because people weren’t at the airports so in a way we were forced to go down this road. And it’s proven to be really beneficial and is probably the future for us. We will be focusing and measuring our activities not just on what happens in the airport, but what happens beyond it.”
Another key component of the digitalisation is that all merchandising will feature a QR code. said Daniels said: “There have been various insights that suggest duty free shoppers might not want to interact with staff as much as before, so we felt it was important that we continued to deliver all the craft facts and information about what the whiskey tastes like and why it is right for them?”
“So we’ve created beautiful animations for most of our range. Once the shopper is in the store, they just scan the QR code. And rather than having a static image with some text, we’ve created animations that are emotionally engaging and give consumers some social currency to justify that purchase. So that when they’re back home, they will be able to say, ‘I bought this product because it’s made like this or it tastes like that’ or some other interesting information about the product.”
[Look out for the full interview with Richard Trimby and Clarisse Daniels after tomorrow’s launch]
