Brown-Forman’s travel retail team has received an extra ‘injection of confidence’ from Jack Daniel’s number three selling spirits brand ranking in DF&TR.

According to the much-respected IWSR Magazine, the Jack Daniel’s brand sold an additional 146,000 cases and was 20% up in 2013 to claim third place in ‘Travel Retail’s Top 100’ overall spirits ranking with 876,500 (9-litre equivalent) cases, while taking the number two spot in the overall global whisk(e)y travel retail league ranking.

Jack Daniel’s was only just denied second place in the top 100 spirits ranking by Absolut with 897,500 cases, as it shot past Chivas Regal’s 856,900 cases last year. Diageo’s Johnnie Walker Brand continued to lead all other spirits brands with sales of 2.2m, although JW’s sales declined by 4.5%, last year, while Absolut’s fell by 10.4% and Chivas Regal’s declined by 4.6%.

Talking to TRBusiness at last week’s TFWA Exhibition in Cannes, Jim Perry, Managing Director Travel Retail, Brown-Forman (inset, below) said it was great news, but not entirely unexpected that the brand has now overtaken the iconic Chivas brand as the second largest selling whisky in DF&TR.

He said: “Yeah, it is absolutely an injection of confidence. I have to say that the largest piece of feedback I’ve had has come internally from people who don’t necessarily pay attention to travel retail. You know, it’s not their daily reason for being, but particularly from our brand people realizing, ‘Oh my God!’

 

‘IN SEVERAL YEARS WE COULD BE NUMBER 1’
“We’ve been telling them this year after year – our progress and what we’re doing. Then suddenly when they see it in an independent third party press release you kind of feel like saying, ‘We told you! We told you so!’”

Perry added: “You look at the life cycle of the different brands and Jack is a brand that is newer to the international scene than a brand like Chivas and it’s probably bold to say, but we look at what’s number one and we don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that in several years we could be number one in terms of volume.

“Volume in itself is not the goal – it’s the value that you’re looking for – but we’re really excited that our super-premium expressions that we’ve introduced the last few years are doing very, very well and doing exactly what we wanted them to do.”

He believes that the important marker is that the Jack Daniel’s franchise continues to grow in both volume and value and he says this is ‘very important’. He added: “We actually would think right now we’re the number two brand in terms of sales trends. We think our growth in the last six months – because it’s a calendar year basis for IWSR – is that we’ve probably moved into the number two slot.”

 

MANAGEMENT HAS BEEN PATIENT
However, he says that while it would obviously be nice to make it to the number one spot, he wants to do it the right way, as we explained: “It would be nice to get there for the right reasons… not for the wrong reasons. We wouldn’t want to see an iconic brand stumble. We’d like to win by good competition and not something happening to the industry, or anything like that.”

More broadly, Perry said he was very pleased that the spirits sector continues to grow as a whole and he added that he wasn’t surprised that Jack Daniel’s has made it to the top of the league rankings.

But as he says, this has hardly all happened by accident: “It’s a lot of tending in the vineyard, but when you get the small things right the big things sometimes take care of themselves. That’s the nice thing about having a 150-year old company with a management that is patient.”

Product sampling of Jack Daniel’s No 27 Gold at Sydney Airport with Nuance (now Dufry).

 

Perry added that he was also very pleased that the Brown-Forman-owned Finlandia Vodka brand also moved into the top ten ranking (at number 10) in 2013 – up five places from 15th place in 2012.

[With thanks to IWSR Magazine for access to its report rankings. IWSR and the IWSR Magazine can be contacted at: 44 (0) 7689 6815, or by emailing: [email protected]].

 

TOP IMAGE: Brown-Forman’s Master Distiller Chris Morris is just about as expert as you can get on American whiskey.