In order to understand how to relaunch an alcohol that was forgotten about by consumers, we decided that it was essential to analyse how trending products became fashionable again and evolved. Over the past few years, spirits like gin and rum and mass market products like the Adidas Stan Smith have taken the market over
We first had to answer the tricky question: why does an alcohol become fashionable again? Many elements have contributed to alcohols like gin and rum’s success. For example, a basic trend like people drinking cocktails has contributed to the new popularity of gin and rum.
Firstly, improving the taste of alcohol immediately raised the number of interested customers – alcohol no longer is a rotgut that people have to pretend to like. Producers have changed their production methods to diversify the taste and aromas of alcohols. Most brands developed premiums to their main brand, like Beefeater 24 and No. 3 Tanqueray 10. Secondly, the influence of world-renowned barmen is non-negligible in this analysis. It was emphasized that legends in this field like Steve Schneider and Dale DeGroff, the inventor of the Cosmopolitan, are followed by barmen around the world from whom they draw inspiration from their inventions and their results in cocktail competitions. Thirdly, one last external factor that boosts specific alcohol sales is the reach of expert and corporate websites like liquor.com and chilledmagazine.com. They are references for barmen in different cities and analyse the current and upcoming markets.
Following that, marketing campaigns of essential actors in the alcohol sector have boosted alcohol sales. First of all, giants like Diageo, Pernod Ricard and Bacardi encourage certain alcohols in specific regions by spending big on marketing campaigns and promoting specific alcohol brands. Two examples illustrate this argument: Pernod Ricard recently replaced his commercial representative in Brussels from a Jameson expert, a whisky brand, to a Beefeater expert, a widely sold gin. The other example comes directly from premium gin brands like Bombay and Sapphire Hendrick’s who opened temporary bars, the Imagin Gin & Tonic Bar and the Chambers of the Curious respectively. The end goal of these bars, who had an exclusive and original design, was to enable customers (experts or experimenters) to savour a unique gin and tonic.
Finally, after interviews with barmen and when conducting research, it was confirmed that the gin trend was relaunched by the Spanish market. Spain’s history with gin goes back to the 18th and 19th centuries when the British Navy would bring this alcohol wherever it went. In 1713, Gibraltar became a British colony and gin was a huge hit in the enclave as it became the hub of smugglers. Nowadays, despite the huge crisis the country is going through, premium gin sales continue to grow annually almost reaching and estimated rise of 18% per year. Experts believe that the Spanish consumer is much more conservative and will “continue to spend on quality”. From a quantitative point of view, UK exports of gin, which are mainly premium categories or above, rose by 24% from 2008 to €105.3 million.
Gin and Rum
Context
Stan smith
The iconic shoe is a perfect example of how a marketing campaign completely relaunched a forgotten product in just a few years. When designed in 1963, most of the people wearing the shoe today were not even born. However, Adidas was still able to generalize the shoe and make it a must have for fashionistas today.
After a stop in production in 2011, stocks were rapidly shrinking and one year later, only a few pairs of sneakers could be found online. The Stan Smith legend was sinking into oblivion until Adidas, using Twitter, announced that 2014 would be the year of the relaunch of the shoe. The shoe retailer directly understood that in order to be successful, they had to connect directly with the client and thus their marketing campaign had to be great. Adidas’s strategy included outdoor, print, in-store and digital advertising, in addition to filming a documentary style video of Stan Smith and other celebrities like Andy Murray on the impact the shoe had on their lives. In order to stimulate the demand, Adidas first made the shoe unobtainable and extremely rare by stopping production.
Once the shoe was relaunched, they controlled the supply to ensure that the shoe would often be sold out and much sought after. Moreover, the relaunch was timed exactly on the brand’s 50th anniversary to increase penetration. Another important point was that the shoe benefited from a 90’s fashion resurgence which has helped the shoe regain its past aura. Finally, two actions made by Adidas ensured that Stan Smiths would directly be successful. First of all, the brand associated itself with famous people and worldwide leaders in fashion. For example, Pharrell Williams launched his very own colourful brand of Stan Smiths and Gisele Bundchen wore the shoe on the cover of Vogue Magazine. The other strategy was to launch Stan Smiths made from a combination of ecological products, aligning itself with the general feeling of its clients that it is time to pay attention to the planet.
We decided to analyse this success story because a German family launched a new gin based on local products that rapidly took the gin market by storm. Their strategy was to concentrate themselves on the product, as they barely spent on marketing campaigns, and thus Monkey 47 gin is composed of 47 different fruits and fragrances.
From a marketing point of view, the company put this gin’s unique taste forward insisting that no other brand could compete with it. Moreover, some of Monkey 47’s flavours come directly from the Black Forest in Germany. They used the local and micro-brewery trends to promote their product as customers are starting to pay more attention to where products come from. Finally, the mysterious aspect of the gin’s recipe also plays a major role in the company’s aura, as it has been kept secret and the company insisted on the “magical” combination of elements during its marketing campaign.
Following the company’s success, sales rapidly rose from 5,000 bottles in 2010 to over 150,000 bottles in 2013. This incredible success story raised the attention of Pernod Ricard and the alcohol giant bought the German company in January 2016.
Monkey 47
