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Enhancement Inside & Out
The New Look: Boru Goes Beyond a Mere Makeover
Where some brands might put on a pretty face by redesigning
their labels, Boru Vodka has improved not only the image of its
packaging but the vodka inside it. The form, says Claes Fick, the new
chief commercial and marketing officer at Castle Brands Spirits Co.
Ltd., follows the function.
“We’ve managed to add another distillation to the brand, which takes it
from being a good vodka to become an excellent vodka,” says Fick, who
is responsible for the marketing and commercial development of all of
Castle Brands’ brands globally. And he knows a thing or two about how
to develop a vodka brand; for 17 years before his current gig, Fick was
with Vin & Sprit AB, the Swedish company that developed and owns
Absolut Vodka and other premium spirits brands.
Beginning this spring, this new breed of Boru hits the market with new packaging reflecting the improvement.
Irish By Birth
Boru was born in 1998 in Ireland and launched in 1999 in the states,
and Castle Brands intends to make it as big a star here as it is in its
homeland. That task, Fick says, has produced meager results before 2007.
“In Ireland, it’s today one of the leading brands in the vodka
category,” Fick says. “Up until Castle Brands got involved with the
brand in 2003 and eventually bought the brand in 2004, the brand had a
bit of a dicey journey in the United States. The key for the brand
basically was to resurrect it and provide it with some volume in the
marketplace (so that it was) perceived as a player, so to speak.
“The quickest path to do that is to grow volumes in the off-trade,
because building brands in the on-premise is really a long-term
proposition. You can do that when you start a new brand, but when you
have a brand that needs a little bit of repositioning, that journey may
become a little bit too long.
“The other reason was that the packaging did not lend itself
particularly well for competing with the most recent super-premiums in
the industry,” Fick says. “The most important thing was to re-position
the brand and develop new packaging supporting the brand. Pretty much
everything in 2007 is to launch the new packaging into the marketplace
and using that as one of the key elements of re-positioning ourselves
in the minds of the trade — most importantly with the bars and
restaurants in the United States, but eventually also with consumers.
The Fifth Dimension
The re-positioning isn’t mere hollow marketing. Along with the new look
is a newer, improved version of what already was a darn good vodka,
Fick says.
“We’ve gone a step further than just the smoothness and, through this
fifth distillation, managed to add crispness to the vodka, which is
something that seems to be the fashion of the super-premium vodkas.
It’s become both very smooth but also a very crisp vodka. April is when
you’ll start seeing it in the United States.”
Support Group
Significant promotional activities will back the revamped Boru
on-premise, including POS materials, specialty cocktails recipes,
advertising, sponsorship of events.
“We are in the process of developing that program,” Fick says, noting
that the quality of all elements is aimed to position Boru as a
super-premium player in the marketplace. NCB
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