Bushmills Black Bush & Original going premium...

[Leither]

Even whiskey blends are going all 'premium' on us! From a Diageo Marketing Job Spec:

Bushmills - Diageo's oldest "newest brand" - enables us to partake in the buoyant Irish Whiskey Category, which is forecast to continue double-digit growth.

We are repositioning Bushmills in Sociable Independence 'easy-going, popular and laid back Independence'. This sweet spot of the motivations is an attitude to whiskey that fits right into our young male drinkers' lives. To support this ambition we will have a single consistent Bushmills positioning, pack & programming.

Bushmills amazing 400 year heritage, friendly & spirited personality and easy drinking smooth richness makes it the perfect whiskey to reach a new audience of young men who currently respect whiskey a bit too much to really enjoy it at all.

Project Maverick is a packaging redesign project on Bushmills core variants (Original and Black Bush), driving the brand's premiumisation and supporting its re-positioning in Independence. The new packaging will specifically need to address the perceived lack of quality of the Bushmills Original pack.

The project will deliver an inspiring new pack design for Bushmills Original and Black Bush, motivating markets to re-launch the brand, supporting new positioning and growth drivers (new packs delivered by July 09).

I'm very keen on the BB so the words 'premiumisation' and 're-positioning' mean one thing to me - stock up now

[Willie JJ]

Is it just me, or are the marketing folks carrying on as if nothing bad is happening to the world economy?

[Deactivated Member]

If I'm reading this right, it says that people don't rate the quality of Bushmills - and especially think Original is just cheap and nasty. Maybe they will hike the price with a relaunch and redesigned packaging, but the text suggests that they want to focus on persuading people to drink the products first. IMO, Original has got a lot of scope for improvement in the product before it could raise the price. There are other, better products (e.g. Jameson, Powers) at a similar price point. Also IMO, Black Bush has long been underpriced. It was intended to be the ultimate Bushmills, even when the single malt was launched. I think it is a splendid drink, and it is unusual to get sherry flavours in Irish whiskey, but suffers from the perception that malts are superior to blends. Perhaps that has become the case in Scotland, but it certainly isn't the case in Ireland.

[Leorin]

I agree the the Black Bush is good whiskey (but it certainly isn't worth 95 points like Jim Murray thinks).
But the question is how much are people willing to pay for a blended Irish Whikskey at 40% abv. with no age statement?
Well, I don't think it's underpriced now. I bought a bottle for 18 Euro two years ago and I liked it but I had no urge to buy another one after I finished that first bottle.

[kallaskander]

Hi there,

well Willie marketing does not really need the real world .

Interesting how all things seem to be connected.

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=9712&p=175998#p175998

Greetings
kallaskander

[lisa]

:

This sweet spot of the motivations is an attitude to whiskey that fits right into our young male drinkers' livers. To support this ambition we will have a single consistent Bushmills positioning, pack & programming.

:

[Spirit of Islay]

Is it just me, or are the marketing folks carrying on as if nothing bad is happening to the world economy?

Common Willie , i thought you'd know what was happening on Planet Alison......

[Alan Gold Label]

Does anyone mind if I bump this up?
What changes (if any) to either of the Bushes were made to "premiumise" them? I think price wise the White Bush is around the same as a Paddys or Powers and perhaps a Euro cheaper than Jameson's standard and the Black Bush is priced closer to €30 in the same price bracket and market as Crested Ten. Tyconnell Single Malt is also about €30.

I've not noticed any marketing or advertising of the brand outside of the odd special offer in Dunnes Stores.

[Ganga]

I somehow missed this originally. I had a couple of thoughts:

1. Should the statement have been released? This reads like an internal memorandum, the kind that papers publish when it is a political figure.

2. Just because you change the product label doesn't mean you've changed the product inside. In order to premiumise the White Label/Original, first you need to actually put a premuim beverage in there. As your introductory whiskey, you don't want people saying, "I paid ____! Why would I want to invest more to go further up the line."

3. It isn't "going Maverick" if all the other brands are doing the same.

I like the Black Bush and do consider it as a purchase every now and then but price increases in the BB would take it right out of the mix. I found the PPS whiskies to be far more to my liking and would wander over to these first with any price increases.

[Shrek]

The wording in the above post, as I stated above, was from a job advert sent to me (I work in Marketing, yeah, yeah, yeah..... boo-hiss and all that all you like!) over a year ago.

Looks like the packaging makeover 'Project Maverick' has been delayed or perhaps postponed, or maybe they couldn't find a suitable candidate.

I also like Black Bush very much indeed hence the heads up with this post (it was being heavily promoted/discounted in the UK last year) but, like you Ganga, I've been steering towards PPS these days as my Irish Whiskey of choice.

[Aidan]

They have repackaged the Bushmills range. I'll try to find a link. If I was to look at one of the new bottles, that marketing blurb would not spring into my mind.

[Aidan]

I haven't seen them on the shelves, but the launch was a while ago, I think. Here's a link ...

http://popsop.com/28112

[Alan Gold Label]

Thanks for the link Aidan

Haha, they've taken the "orange" label off the bottle! Good aul Diageo.

The two bottles on the Aidan's link there are of the "original" and the 1608 Anniversary Edition are they not? Anyways...

Bushmills Original "White/Orange" Label old vs. new bottle:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... iskey2.jpg



Black Bush old vs. new label:






http://www.celticwhiskeyshop.com/images ... RD_232.jpg
; http://www.coevintners.co.uk/pubcontent/images/products/05008_large.jpg


http://www.bushmills.com/Whiskeys






I much prefer the old bottle. It looked strong sturdy and elegant yet nice and normal and not too fancy. The new one has a little flare at the bottom, broader shoulders at the top and some writing on the bottle. I suppose it looks a little more premium but ye shouldn't judge a drink by its bottle

[Aidan]

No, it's the new bottling, rather than the anniversary edition. I thought Diageo were going to de-emphasise the silly 1608 thing, but obviously not. Not that it affects the taste.

[Pure Pot Head]

and it is unusual to get sherry flavours in Irish whiskey

Strange comment - Jameson has always been noted for it's sherry content. They actually own the sherry casks and lease them to the Antoino Paez bodega and oversee the usage prior to using them for Jameson. Jameosn 18year is almost 90% sherry cask, Jameson 12 is about 65% sherry cask. Jameson NAS is about 33% sherry cask.

Jameson Rarest Vintage Reser ve uses Sherry and Port casks and they've got Madiera and Marsala casks maturing as we 'speak.'

Re the Bushmills relaunch or repack. Hmm. I think it looks good. I never liked the big red badge on the label, it always looked like a discount sticker to me. But I do wish they'd drop the 1608 nonsense. Someone's going to pull them up on it someday. The whiskey doesn't need this marketing gimick, I'm sure it stands up on its own.

Pure Pot Head

Pure Pot Head

[Alan Gold Label]

What is the 1608 thing about?

[Aidan]

Bushmills say they are the oldest licensed distillery in the world, because the area (a very broad area) in which the distillery was granted a license to distill in 1608. However, the distillery wasn't there at the time - It started distilling there over 170 years later.

By their reasoning, if I built a distillery in the same area, I could say my distillery dates from 1608.

Kilbeggan is the oldest whiskey distillery in the world, I believe, now that it's operating again.

[Pure Pot Head]

Kilbeggan is the oldest whiskey distillery in the world, I believe, now that it's operating again.

Really? Tell me more!

Pure Pt Head

[Alan Gold Label]

Oh yeah.
I often don't pay much attention to this "oldest XYZ whiskey in the world" thing. It's either the oldest bonded, oldest bottled, oldest distilled, oldest licenced, oldest distillery etc. etc.

Most of it's marketing guff as far as I'm concerned. Mind you, i'm a fan of Powers - oldest bottled whiskey

[Alan Gold Label]

PS. Bushmills Original/White/Orange label is €20 in SuperValu atm.

[Aidan]

Kilbeggan is the oldest whiskey distillery in the world, I believe, now that it's operating again.

Really? Tell me more!

Pure Pt Head

Yeah, it was founded in 1757 and operated until 1954. Now it's up and running again with one small still from the Tullamore distillery (I think) and another one manufactured to be exactly the same. They have been operating for two years now, but for the first while the first distillation was done in Cooley, now both distillations are done in Kilbeggan.

"Unfortunately", they're making malt whiskey there at the moment, but they have often talked about a plan to make pot still whiskey there again, like the olden days.

I think there is evidence that Glen Garioch might be the oldest distillery in Scotland, dating back to the 1780s.

[jimidrammer]

By the looks of the Bushmills website they changed the blends bottles but left the Single Malt bottles alone for now, maybe to distinguish between them. I like the Original and BB better than a lot Scotch blends and the 16yo & 21yo Single Malts are very distinctive.

[irishwhiskeychaser]

and it is unusual to get sherry flavours in Irish whiskey

Strange comment - Jameson has always been noted for it's sherry content. They actually own the sherry casks and lease them to the Antoino Paez bodega and oversee the usage prior to using them for Jameson. Jameosn 18year is almost 90% sherry cask, Jameson 12 is about 65% sherry cask. Jameson NAS is about 33% sherry cask.

Yes I agree ... Irish has always had a long association with the sherried finish and as you say Jameson have total control over their sherry casks.

Bushmills say they are the oldest licensed distillery in the world, because the area (a very broad area) in which the distillery was granted a license to distill in 1608. However, the distillery wasn't there at the time - It started distilling there over 170 years later.

By their reasoning, if I built a distillery in the same area, I could say my distillery dates from 1608.

Kilbeggan is the oldest whiskey distillery in the world, I believe, now that it's operating again.

I think the "oldest licensed distillery" came into being when Kilbeggan opened as a museum back in the 80's. Kilbeggan were rightly claiming that they were the oldest distillery in the world and it had nothing to do with whiskey at the time but as a selling point for the museum. The fact it was not producing whiskey was immaterial it was still a distillery . Bushmills then decided to claim they held the oldest licence and that was from 1784 not 1608. However as perter Mulryan's book on Bushmills reveals there is actual no direct link with Bushmills today and a licenced distillery that started in 1784. All this marketing balloney just gets in the way of what is really important and that is the whiskey

In relation to the whiskey all I can say is that Blackbush is one of the finest blends on the market. I will also say that the regular White Bush has improved greatly in the last few years imo but lets not get carried away as it still is very much a bog standard blend.

I like the new packaging by the way

Probably will be rolled out to the Malts next year