Whisky Season = News Stories
If you are a regular reader of The Scotch Blog, then you know that Scotch Whisky is much more than a fantastic breakfast beverage - it's big business.
And as we come out of the slow whisky days of Summer and enter the "whisky season"* the business stories start to pick up.
What IS in that bottle?
For example this story about a European Union proposal to lift an existing exemption that allows alcohol companies to avoid including ingredients on the labels of their drinks.
This would be bad enough for single malt distilleries, who would have to disclose the addition of caramel to their product - and It's not clear if blends would have to disclose which individual malts and grains went in to the mix (I doubt it) - but it would certainly affect companies like Drambuie (as per the story), who use the secrecy of their recipe as part of their marketing.
My Goodness, Less Guinness
Other stories include the news of an 8% drop in the volume of Guinness sold in Ireland - which some news outlets chose to report as the end of the world. Not true - but this has real repercussions for Diageo.
Guinness is tightly identified as the drink that Ireland drinks. While consumption of Guinness around the world is increasing, the perception backlash could be that "if the Irish aren't drinking it, why should we?"
Like Paul Walsh, head of Diageo, says "Guinness is a pub drink and a man's drink. Those men don't go to the pub any more." That may be true in Ireland, but due to innovative packaging, off-premises consumption of Guinness is on the rise in over-seas markets.
While analysts have been calling for the sell-off of the Guinness brand - which would allow Diageo to focus solely on the wine & liquor business, Guinness is not the only beer in the Diageo portfolio - Harp, Red Stripe (Hooray Beer!), Kilkenny, Smithwick's & Tuskers round out the beer offerings.
FREE CONSULTING ALERT: In my estimation, Diageo should move the focus away from the Irish origins of Guinness - that strategy has worked well for Bailey's, which is no longer marketed as Bailey's Irish Cream - but simply as "Bailey's".
And, since no one asked, I suggest that Diageo should also stop with the brand extension. When I say Gilbey's, Gordon's & Tanqueray you probably think Gin, Gin and Gin. For some unknown reason Diageo also has a Vodka with each of those marques. Not smart.
Never heard of it...
The attempt to market Columba Cream in the international market as "Scotland's answer to Bailey's" is not working out as well as the investors had hoped.
Bailey's commands 2/3rd of the entire cream liqueur market - In contrast, most people have never heard of Columba Cream.
The new management team of the Scottish Liqueur Centre, which had sought to rescue the brand has rebuilt the factory, built a visitor's center and spent quite a bit of money relaunching the brand. Unfortunately I think the branding is a little too Scots-centric for what aspires to be a multi-national
brand.
I also doubt that ANYONE has the financial resources to go head-to head against Diageo in the whisky-based cream liqueur market, and let's be honest, how many people would be able to discern between the Irish and Scotch whiskies which are the base ingredients of these two drinks?
FREE CONSULTING ALERT #2: Focus on marketing the Solas line of fruit-based liqueurs. The fruit approach to whisky liqueurs, as well as the attractive packaging makes THIS the product to market. Mark my words.
Highland Park, the Orkney single malt which consistently makes the "best of" lists of SMS lovers around the world, is due to get a big investment from parent The Edrington Group.
Edrington hopes that the £18 million global investment will double annual sales over the next five years - this is in addition to a recently completed (soon to be revealed) £750,000 brand repackaging.
Highland Park is already in the midst of its best financial year ever - with a 17% increase in sales so far.
*The "whisky season" that time when whisky shows abound, whisky announcements fall like rain and random, and often erroneous, whisky stories grace the pages of magazines of all sorts.
again thescotchblog summary of latest news is on the spot! my comment on 'ingredients' is that in Germany they do have to reveal caramel on all whisky bottles. I think it says 'Mit Karamel' so this new law would just be a Europe wide extension of current German regulations. Many bottles over here have the Mit Karamel so that the back labels are compliant even if they are not being sold in Germany
Posted by: James Thomson | September 06, 2006 at 06:06 AM
Glad you enjoyed Whisky Live in Gladgow and hope you saw our Gold Award winning whiskies.
If you require any further information on our bottlings please contact me.
Best regards
Arthur Winning, James MacArthur & Co Ltd
Posted by: Arthur Winning | September 18, 2006 at 11:35 AM