During the Moodie Davitt Virtual Travel Retail Expo, Bacardi will be sharing its approach for reigniting growth in travel retail, prompted by several of this year’s fast-track consumer trends, in virtual suite WS-P8. Bacardi Global Travel Retail Managing Director Vinay Golikeri explains the shape this will take.
While passenger numbers are presently down, Bacardi is confident that travel is in our human DNA, says Vinay Golikeri. As the pandemic subsides and people feel safer, more consumers will start travelling again to connect with family and friends and to enjoy the thrill of exploring the world.
Bacardi is in the business of enabling consumers to celebrate moments that matter. Travel retail is a fantastic channel for consumers to experience our brands and for us to engage with them. We are deeply committed to travel retail as a key strategic brand-building channel, especially the opportunities with emerging market consumers.
In this most extraordinary and challenging year, consumer priorities and mindset have changed dramatically in many ways, and we must keep that focus at the heart of everything we do. Bacardi is actively working with our retail partners on innovative retail solutions that can reignite growth in what will become the new era of travel.
By far the biggest transformational opportunity for the channel is rooted in how travel retail embraces digital along the entire consumer journey, from trip planning right through to post-travel. Brands and retailers can leverage each other’s strengths to create a new approach for driving shopper engagement and conversion with platforms like click and collect.
We can support our retail partners’ ecommerce and in-store sales opportunities with a mix of digital engagement and retail excitement in the physical space while also creating loyalty to ensure repeat purchase.
For seven generations, family-owned Bacardi has encouraged a fearless and entrepreneurial mindset in everything we do. I am incredibly proud of how the Bacardi Global Travel Retail team is testing and learning in the digital space, creating new strategies for the consumer experience and revenue for our retail partners.
At the Virtual Travel Retail Expo, Bacardi will spotlight how its premium portfolio of iconic, market-leading brands is perfectly suited to several other consumer trends, creating further growth opportunities for travel retail.
There’s a new breed of at-home mixologists popping up as a result of quarantine. Just like people are experimenting with recipes, they’re also trying new cocktails with 43% of consumers taking it up during lockdown, according to Bacardi research. These customers discovered that it’s more fun to make a pizza from scratch and pair it with a creative cocktail than to cook a frozen pizza and pop open a bottle of wine.
Our portfolio is an inspiring line-up for any at-home mixologist wanting to create bar-perfect serves. With four global travel retail category leaders in Bacardí rum, Patrón tequila, Grey Goose vodka and Bombay Sapphire gin, this powerful line-up elevates all drinking occasions. Meanwhile for retailers these brands are accelerating category growth with our commitment to digital commerce in travel retail, product innovation, premiumisation and retail advocacy as core drivers to increase transaction spend.
As the most under-premiumised category in travel retail, the size of the prize for rum could be worth US$400 million in retail sales, according to the IWSR. Bacardí is the world’s most awarded rum and the leading rum brand in the world based on sales value. It also boasts the position of number one rum in global travel retail, where we have a premium portfolio, supported by four, eight, ten and sixteen-year-old age statements to drive category premiumisation. We are exploring new digital ideas with travel retailers, including digital masterclasses and virtual tastings, to engage consumers with the versatility of our rums.
Innovation is a key priority for us and we have an exciting new gin to reveal at the Virtual Travel Retail Expo. As the latest addition to Bombay Sapphire – the number one gin in global travel retail – Bombay Bramble will deliver fresh impetus to gin, already the fastest-growing spirits category in the channel. That growth is underpinned by the huge rise in popularity of flavoured gin opening further opportunities to excite the market.
Bombay Bramble is a unique coloured gin, crafted using a fruit infusion with no added sugar for a flavour that allows you to control the sweetness of each drink and tailor serves. As consumers return to travel, they will seek to combine trusted brands with what’s new and exciting, and we believe they will find that in Bombay Bramble.
In the Virtual Travel Retail Expo’s Experience Hub, we’re inviting the industry to look at another hot category with The Rise of Super Premium Tequila on 16 October. The category is growing at +10.8% year-on-year and is estimated to deliver an additional US$60 million in retail sales value in three years, according to the IWSR.
In Patrón, driving this category growth as its leader, we see a huge opportunity beyond the brand’s core market in the US to export the momentum to Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. With the right space in-store, we can leverage our existing domestic market investment by nurturing consumer appreciation, disrupting perceptions of tequila by educating about its quality, versatility and sophistication in cocktail-making.
We’ll also be demonstrating the power of disruption in whisky and the premiumisation opportunity we are committed to in travel retail. We are recruiting new whisky consumers and exciting collectors and connoisseurs with unconventional, exclusive and differentiated products. Our team is passionate about leading a new era of whisky in travel retail with limited-edition finishes, beautiful gift presentations, personalisation and digital disruption.
In blended Scotch, Dewar’s is among the fastest-growing brands. Dewar’s Double Double – as a great example of an unconventional disruptor – is premiumising the category with phenomenal success since its launch last year, including the recent accolade for Whisky of the Year for the 32-year-old at the 2020 International Whisky Competition.
The prestige single malts segment is growing at +27% year-on-year. Our brands are growing fast and offer higher age statements in the prestige-plus segment. Aberfeldy is seriously shaking things up, accelerating from the 20th largest brand in 2012 to ninth in 2019. Next spring, Royal Brackla will initially launch 12, 18 and 21-year-old age statements as an exclusive with China Duty Free Group.
As a final word, we must remember that consumers have deepened their connection with brand values. Bacardi has a goal to be the world’s most environmentally-responsible spirits company and we are getting there by cutting greenhouse gases, reducing our water consumption and several other initiatives in a comprehensive and agile strategy.
For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we transformed several production facilities to make hand sanitiser and we have also supported the bartender community through a US$4 million investment in our Raise Your Spirits campaign. As a family business, community values have always been close to our heart and Bacardi is passionate about fostering healthy and vibrant communities where we live and work.
NOTE: In the Expo’s Engagement Lounge on 14 October, whisky specialist Becky Paskin, will be joined by Bacardi Malts Brand Ambassador Matthew Cordiner and Dewar’s Brand Ambassador Fraser Campbell to discuss the latest trends within the category and how Bacardi is capitalising on the growth of premium whisky. Register for The Experts Talk Next Generation Whisky here
