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Notes From A Small Island
d=”standfirst”>Isle of Jura whisky has enjoyed US success in recent years, and much of this has come from the hand-selling techniques of brand ambassador Willie Tait, says Penny Boothman
“ONE ROAD, one distillery, one pub, a post office, 600 deer and not a lot else.” Justin Penman, global brand manager for Isle of Jura at Whyte & Mackay, explains Jura’s truly unusual USP. There has been a distillery on Jura since 1810 but it was rebuilt in the early 1960s to try to provide more employment for local people. Penman says: “There was a real problem with the population reducing; people weren’t staying on the island, so the local landowners decided to rebuild the distillery in order to try to keep people on the island. To this day we’re the largest employer on the island – surprisingly enough!”
The Isle of Jura brand umbrella now covers an everyday drinking 10-year-old malt, a slightly fruitier 16-yearold, and the heavy-duty 21year-old, and Superstition, a bolder, peatier malt closer to the Islay style, which won a gold medal at the San Francisco World Spirits competition last year .
The Isle of Jura distillery may be the most remote in Scotland, but the brand has a comprehensively global marketing strategy. Penman says: “There has been a huge explosion of interest in malts across the world and about three years ago we took the decision that we’d highlight certain markets, either where the market dynamics were good enough, or we had a great distributor, or a feeling that we might cash in on a new wave of interest. Those markets were the US, the UK, France, Sweden and travel retail.
“The US has been our biggest success of this year, growing significantly, and Willie’s been a big part of that.”
Willie Tait, brand ambassador for Isle of Jura whisky, is the spearhead of the focus on the US market. Tait has more than 30 years’ whisky experience under his belt, most of which has been spent at the Isle of Jura Distillery. Penman explains, “Because of the threetier system in the US, we’ve never really been able to speak directly to consumers and Willie’s doing that for us. It doesn’t happen overnight – it takes a long time to build things that way – but we’re well on track. In our five-year plan we’re looking to get into the top 10 brands in the US. Two years ago we were nowhere.”
A little known fact is that Jura was where George Orwell stayed to write Nineteen Eighty Four. He later described the island as an “extremely ungetat-able place.” As remote as it is, the distillery’s visitors’ centre now sees some 20,000 visitors a year. “Believe it or not the vast majority come from Sweden,” Penman says. “It’s probably one of the biggest markets for us in terms of brand awareness, and there’s a lot of interest in Superstition. It seems to fit the flavour profile of the Swedes: they like darker, heavier malts.”
It is easy to sell people whisky once they have visited the island and sipped a dram with the master distiller, but this is not realistic for most consumers. Penman comments, “It’s a bit of a leap of faith to try a new malt brand because it’s such an investment. If you’re going to be spending 25 quid on a bottle then you want to feel reassured that it’s going to deliver what you want from that drink.
“We’ve discovered that with malts you have to hand-sell. If you can get consumers to taste it and explain to them what they’re tasting, then people are far more likely to buy it and far more likely to buy your brand.”
Jura also uses its website for marketing purposes and has a members’ club featuring special offers and competitions.
However, Jura’s marketing focuses not just on how to sell whisky, but also who is being sold to. “It’s so highly competitive out there – in all spirits categories, not just malt – you need to broaden your horizons in whom you’re aiming your products at,” Penman says. “There is a bigger world outside the 45plus ABC male consumer. I still think there’s a lot of work to be done in targeting women. The 10-year-old is very light and easy to drink and not too challenging, and that makes it very accessible to consumers who haven’t tried malt before.
“Last year was the first year that we really had our own ontrade sales team in the UK. We’ve had a lot of success getting listings in top-end bars and we needed to support those with cocktails that enhance the flavour of the malt.”
And the future for the most remote whisky brand of all? “We’d like to be a top 10 global malt brand, but there’s a lot of hard work to be done. The big boys might not be worrying yet but we’ll be on their radar before long.” Fighting talk for global domination from a small island.