Halewood Spirits Dead Man's Fingers activation at London Stansted Airport
Halewood Artisanal Spirits is stepping into 2024 with one of its busiest activation programs in global travel retail to date. While the focus remains on Halewood's key European sales region, the growing popularity of the company’s core brands Whitley Neill and Dead Man’s Fingers is evident by demand in Sydney, Australia, and Johannesburg, South Africa.
Halewood is a leading producer and distributor of alcoholic products in the UK and internationally, with its innovative and differentiated range that stands out from traditional offerings led by Whitley Neill flavoured gins and the daringly different Dead Man’s Fingers. Halewood has carved out a niche for fun, distinctive and intriguing spirits that experiment with unusual flavours without compromising on quality.
“We worked out very quickly that ‘me-too’ products wouldn’t work for us in travel retail markets and, while global brands are important, we know that travel retail shoppers are open to new and different brands that attract their attention,” says Global Travel Retail Director Eamon Prunty. Prunty believes activations based on tastings are key to shopper conversion. “It’s all about liquid on lips – try it and buy it,” he continues. “Last year saw Halewood’s largest-ever investment into supporting our brands on the shop floor and that paid huge dividends with our GTR seeing tangible growth. For our Financial Year ending June 23, GTR volumes have doubled versus the previous year.”
The momentum continues in 2024 with first-quarter activations taking place across Europe, including Birmingham, Glasgow, Stansted, Geneva, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich and Vienna airports. Jo’burg also plays host to promotions this month (January) and in March. Halewood has worked closely with specialist retail agency Kounter to create a range of tasting bars, digital screens and merchandising units promoting both Whitley Neil and Dead Man’s Fingers brands to suit all space options. The emphasis is on impactful displays that build on the rainbow colours of the portfolio to create bold, highly visible, engaging and fun spaces that will attract and divert travellers on their airport journey.
“It might sound a cliché, but the airport environment really does work as a showcase for our brands and provides a superb opportunity to introduce new products and build our customer base globally,” comments Prunty. “We find promotions that cover both brands work particularly well – travellers familiar with one brand discovering the other, often resulting in both being purchased.”
Tastings will include Whitley Neil’s latest addition Black Cherry, launched into GTR at TFWA WE last year. With aromas of cherries, almonds and a faint wisp of chocolate, Black Cherry is inspired by the brand’s founder Johnny Neill’s travels to Africa, capturing the flavours of South African cherry orchards. “Black Cherry was launched into the UK late 2022 as a new Christmas flavour and sold very well beyond the festive season,” continues Prunty. “We like to ensure new flavours work sufficiently well on the domestic market before moving into GTR – shelf space is highly pressurised, so flavours need to be moving through at sufficient levels domestically to secure their spot in the GTR portfolio.”
Alongside Whitley Neill and Dead Man’s Fingers, Halewood has big plans this year to build GTR distribution of its Aber Falls single malt whisky – a more recent addition to the company’s channel portfolio. Aber Falls Whisky Distillery is one of only four in Wales, and the first in North Wales since the early 1900s. Located within a stone’s throw of Rhaeadr Fawr, the famous Aber Falls waterfall, the whisky is made in the distillery, using specially crafted Welsh ingredients from the surrounding area.
“Aber Falls has masses of potential in travel retail – it’s another example of a product that’s a little bit different from the run-of-the-mill and will attract customers through its traditional Welsh heritage and quality of liquid. It sits perfectly alongside our other GTR brands and enables us to offer a more rounded portfolio helping us to build distribution further afield, particularly within Asia,” he adds.
