Putting money where your mouth is
Keep advertising and advertising will keep youâ, famously quipped whisky baron Tommy Dewar. He was renowned for advertising firsts and for
the lavish promotional budgets that built the Dewarâs brands round the world.
And, across the industry, his successors and competitors have taken him at his word. Today, the global marketing spend behind a really major blended whisky might exceed £100m ($160m) per annum. Thatâs correct â more than £100m a year to persuade you to keep topping up stocks of your favourite tipple.
And thatâs just one brand. A bevy of competitors are all spending, just as heavily, so marketing in all its guises is a matter of huge concern to the whisky industry.
Thatâs why Whisky Magazine is taking a look at the whatâs, whyâs and whereforeâs of whisky marketing.
After all, you could build a lot of distilleries with that marketing cash; give all the employees a huge pay rise and, perish the thought, cut the price of a dram â and still have a tidy lottery win in change.
But thatâs too easy. We live in a competitive and ever-changing marketplace and when the distillers arenât busy chasing sales and market share theyâre secretly petrified by the thought that you might suddenly switch to vodka, or even alcopops, if you werenât regularly reminded of the charms of the cratur.
Some people make the case for even greater expenditure. Alan Gray is whisky analyst at Sutherlands, the Edinburghbased stockbrokers and a long-standing comment.....
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By Ian Buxton
Section : Whisky Production
Page number : 20
