Halewood reveals its ‘dynamic’ strategy
Halewood Artisanal Spirits admits that its core strength as a business is its ability to introduce new products that “resonate” with consumers because of them being “well-timed” and “dynamic”. db reports.
Speaking to the drinks business about the nature of new product developments (NPDs), the company revealed that a lot of its products had landed well and would “resonate” with people because the company was “unafraid to try new things”.
Staying agile
Halewood Artisanal Spirits global travel retail director Eamon Prunty told db: “We’re great with NPD stuff and great at launching brands, because this is a family-owned fast-moving, dynamic business, we say: ‘Let’s look at the market’ and ‘let’s do some consumer testing’ and ‘let’s see if it works’.”
According to Prunty, this is a tactic that also works well in travel retail since the platform is often the “ideal place to showcase unique products” or wow consumers with something new or “a bit special”.
Prunty explained: “Whilst we don’t have a dedicated innovation team, it is about trial and error and, really, if you don’t test something then you’re never going to know if it works or not. So, rather than just guessing about an idea, we do things.”
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The nostalgia trend
Prunty told db: “If you look at our brands, the amount of flavours we’ve had at Whitney Neill must have been around 80 in the last nine years. But some things stick – like rhubarb and ginger, which is our number one SKU.” This, he insisted, was because of the company’s understanding about trends that were “well-timed” such as the nostalgia trend which coincides with elements of quintessential Englishness and flavours that remind people of the comfort of days gone by, it had used that knowledge of the zeitgeist to its advantage.
Describing how so many of the Whitley Neill flavours were conceived, Halewood Artisanal Spirits brand manager Adam Halewood noted that many were inspired by the flavours of traditional jams like “the raspberry” and “the blood orange, which is obviously like marmalade” as well as the ginger and admitted that really they are “all meant to be like quintessentially British jams”.
Being daring
Speaking more freely about the other flavours and tie-ups that the company had dabbled with to great effect, Prunty added that Halewood is no stranger to being “daring” and also doing things to excite or intrigue consumers to encourage them try new variants.
For instance, he noted how Halewood had also done this with its Dead Man’s Fingers rum brand and told db: “We’ve obviously diversified and tried quite a few fruit variants and some other interesting ones, like bacon and horseradish, but we’ve made a Dead Man’s Fingers rum with Kentucky Fried Chicken. They came to us and said we would like to do something with alcohol and they gave us the Colonel’s recipe, and we did 10,000 bottles as an exclusive, just for Amazon and it sold out within three weeks.”
Last year, Prunty had admitted to db that the GTR platform has helped other markets open up for Halewood’s brands and noted how it has been working with cruise businesses. Prunty explained: “Travel retail is already “70-75% of our businesses” and via the sector it is “seeing other markets now open for us” and reiterated that “on cruises we do a lot with Harding Retail”.
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