Dewar's Marketing Communications

Essay by CornelUniversity, Master'sF, June 2004

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Dewar's Marketing Communications

For stopping a fifteen year decline of its market - since late seventies, Dewar's brand-name needs "urgent" repositioning, for becoming desirable to a new "breed" of customers, the so-called "generation of neglect".

The actual scotch whisky segment, part of the broader, family-of-categories slice, of the larger, alcoholic beverages market, has continuously diminished, reducing to barely 15 million consumers (8% of the adult population of USA), who also had altered their patterns of consumption, either drinking less or changing tastes : Brand-loyalty has become a "rare bird" in the world of scotch drinkers, while aggressive price competition from private labels, and the overall limiting of advertising expenses, had helped undermining brand equity, in a relatively crowded market segment, the indirect beneficiary becoming the "white spirits" category - the "modern", "fashioned cousin", from the quoted family of category needs, distilled spirits, together providing sensorial gratification to 47% of American adults, say around 87 million people.

Therefore, immediate action should be taken, and a concerted effort of the industry's main players would be welcomed, the leader - Dewar's, having to give the signal for a "cease-fire", by approaching the other professionalized importers & manufacturers ... But, before a common initiative, we should prove that odds can be struggled with, and overcome, by succeeding to expand our market-share onto "virgin-land", and we call the NCU's for scotch, still actual drinkers from other parented categories.

Reversing the "tide"

The volatility of the current market segment for scotch has many reasons, both internal & external, but the main one, in our opinion, is to be found in own ranks, with the reductions operated consistently, over a long time-frame, in the "investment" expense which is advertising, the kind-of that protects, for the long-run results (sales), both brands & category need, first from...