Beverage Dynamics is the largest national business magazine devoted exclusively to the needs of off-premise beverage alcohol retailers, from single liquor stores to big box chains, through coverage of the latest trends in wine, beer and spirits.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/485350
www.beveragedynamics.com March/April 2015 • Beverage Dynamics 55 Cordials & Liqueurs discover with Jägermeister." He also sees the development of the Italian amaro sub-category as boding well for the brand. "This type of digestif consumption is more or less our homeland; in Italy we're third behind Montenegro and Averna." Another major brand that has worked hard at adapting is Southern Comfort, just now rolling out a pack- age redesign as well as another in their fl avor line, Southern Comfort Caramel, following a summer TV ad campaign. The new package with a broadened shoulder retains the fl uted neck and added an icon suggesting that it is a category of one. Last Septem- ber brand owner Brown-Forman also launched a seasonal extension Gingerbread Spice. "Our fl avors are intended for 21 - 24 millennial who is all about fl avor," says Jennifer Powell, Southern Comfort US brand director. "These guys grew up with fl avor in their water, fl avor in their gum, fl avor in their yogurt, so these fl avors are really targeted to them." As she notes, the spirits category has become increasingly crowded, with more than 300 new products introduced in the last three months of 2014 alone. But with fl avored brown spir- its leading the latest growth spurt, she thinks that SoCo's target consumer will increasingly turn to the brand for fl avor experi- ences. And while Southern Comfort 70 proof constitutes about 80 percent of the brand's business, the company is seeing modest growth for the 100 iteration, perhaps picking up from the higher proof whiskey trend. SoCo isn't the only brand branching out into caramel: Kahlúa Salted Caramel is a new, limited edition liqueur in the Kahlúa port- folio that rolled out in February, backed with easy to make at home drink recipes, like the Salted Colada — blended Kahlúa Salted Car- amel, Malibu, coconut cream and pineapple juice. For the summer months, Pernod debuted the cocktail-inspired "Kahlúa Summer market leader in a state, the shelves should represent that." The brand also heavily promoted RumChata Iced Coffee last summer and will continue through this year with a RumChata Iced Coffee co- pack promotion — they put 250,000 co-packs into retail last summer pro- moting the concept. While traditional high-end cordials may have lagged, new players continue to broaden the fl avor profi le of the category. Patron last year followed its 200,000-plus cases of XO Cafe with XO Café Incendio, a blend of Mexican cri- ollo chocolate, arbol chiles and Patron silver tequila. "We wanted to create a culinary item that was true to our Mex- ican heritage as a brand," says Patron's chief marketing offi cer Lee Applbaum. "We wanted it to be very high quality. We didn't invent anything new with the combination of fl avors, but we did want to follow the culinary and mixologist trends — they've done some amaz- ing things with Incendio." He thinks the brand's positioning will enable it to be used in a variety of contexts rather than as a shooter, and points out the chile-supplied heat means it isn't for everyone. "What people from the Midwest think is spicy is a very different thing from what a person from Miami or Southern California thinks. It's a statement — we didn't want to be middle of the road, and if that statement meant Incendio was going to be a little polarizing, I'm okay with that." FIGHTING BACK Among the brands trying to tack against the fl avored whiskey winds is Jägermeister, which declined by 10.4% to 2.2 million cases last year and has lost around 800,000 cases in yearly sales over the past half- decade. The brand is best-known in the on-premise shot occasion but is fi nding the competition fi erce on and off. It's fi ghting back by adding Jägermeister Spice and recently launching Hispanic-targeted advertising, titled "Sin Igual," which translates to "Like No Other," featuring randomly selected people photographed by Mexican-American photographer Stefan Ruiz without styling, makeup or a formal studio setup. According to the company, the campaign seeks to highlight Jägermeister's "authen- tic and iconic spirit," as well as the cultural diversity of the brand's consumers. Keeping the brand relevant and providing more authenticity is crucial, says Marcus Thieme, Jägermeister's regional director for North America. "We have bigger competitors in the Millennial group now as younger generations have gotten into whiskey, a development we haven't seen before," he says. "Consumers often get into a brand because of the story and history, and we didn't really focus on that before. But we can deliver quite a good story about the brand - for instance, not many of our consumers know that Jagermeister is aged in oak before it's bottled. We have to deliver the consumer's demand for authentic brand and what they can Kahlúa Salted Caramel The majority of growth is coming from emerging brands like RumChata (up 41.5%) Southern Comfort's new package with a broadened shoulder retains the fl uted neck.