“The Monkey Shoulder activation may be great fun but it also has a serious purpose. In a highly competitive market we have to be able to offer international passengers something new and something unexpected. Outstanding theatrical activations help build excitement and drive footfall into the stores and by doing this we give our brands, and our retail partners who are offering them to passengers, the best chance for success. Match that level of excitement to great packaging and highly giftable travel retail exclusive products and you start to create a truly compelling offering,” says Justin Weston, Managing Director GTR at William Grant’s who will be attending the show this year.
“We have been highly active over the last 18 months in terms of releasing new travel retail exclusive ranges for our key brands; the global rollout of the new Glenfiddich Cask Collection range started in April 2014, to join The Balvenie Triple Cask range and this has been supported by several other travel exclusive products including Glenfiddich 25 Year Old, Kininvie 17 Year Old single malt, The Girvan Patent Still 28 Year Old, two new Hendrick’s gift packs, Grant’s 8 Year Old in Asia, Grant’s Nordic Oak and Grant’s Voyager in Europe, as well as several limited edition and seasonal gift packs,” continues Ian Taylor, Head of Marketing GTR.
“This trend will continue in 2015 and we hope to launch Hudson Bourbon, a majestic craft bourbon from New York State in US Duty Free later this year. With the recent acquisition of Drambuie and the plans we have to develop new GTR offerings for both our Tullamore DEW Irish Whiskey range as well new news to come concerning Grants Blended Scotch we fully intend to play an active role in the channel for many years to come,” he adds.
“With Glenfiddich, The Balvenie and now Kininvie we have a leading position within single malts. This is a critical and fast growing, high value category. For continued success and long term growth we need to develop category management solutions that help to grow the entire category, not just our brands.” emphasizes Stephen Corrigan, Regional Director North America GTR.
“These solutions must be shopper and consumer-focused and help passengers navigate easily and effectively through what can be a complex and confusing assortment. This will mean working closely with the operators to secure a fair share of space for single malts in store. Done well, we can help increase average spend per head and generate more profit for both ourselves and our partners. We have seen very positive results already through this approach and to underline its importance to us we will be recruiting our first Category Management Lead, exclusively dedicated to the GTR team later on this year. Category Management and our William Grant approach is something that we look forward to discussing on stand during this IAADFS show,” he says.
“Our strategy has remained very consistent for several years now,” concludes Jose Castellvi, Regional Director LATAM and Caribbean. “We have focused on premiumising our whisk(e)y offering, on gifting opportunities and on offering GTR exclusive products. The difference now is that we are able to bring some more excitement to the in store experience through theatrical, eye catching activations like ‘Adopt a Monkey’, our creative Hendrick’s Gin activities or the great launch activations that have run in Las Vegas and across Brazil for Glenfiddich Cask Collection. This next step has been made possible because we have grown the size of the team and employed a great group of driven young professionals who are dedicated to offering the best possible brand experience to travelers. We have a really exciting team here in The Americas who can’t wait to see their customers in Orlando and for the IAADFS show they will be joined by our new Managing Director, our Head of Marketing, our New Product Development Manager and our Regional Director for Europe so we have brought out the big hitters and are raring to go!”
ENDS
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