Selling the elephant

Michelle van Schalkwyk believes that Amarula’s African heritage will be the cream liqueur’s trump card when it comes to developing markets. Robyn Lewis reports

LET’S play a game of word association.  I say cream liqueurs you say … Baileys? Sex and the City? Ireland? Okay, another one: I say South Africa, you say … rugby? Chenin Blanc? Cream liqueurs?

Probably not, though there’s a brand out there hoping that in the not too distant future that’s an association you’ll readily make.  Amarula Cream from Distell claims to be a truly South African brand and the team behind the product is keen to point out its credentials.

"The unique selling point of the brand is that it is an African drink.  The marula fruit, from which we distil the spirit, can only be found in sub-Saharan Africa and our recent repositioning with the new strapline ‘The Spirit of Africa’ really encapsulates how important the South African heritage is to us," says Michelle van Schalkwyk, international brand manager.

"There’s a fascination, I think, about Africa for most people, even if they have never been there. That entices people in and inspires them to find out more about Africa and also the brand," she argues.

The branding, marketing and packaging are, therefore, all carefully created to make the most of this heritage and have over time become integral to the brand’s identity, she claims.  "The fruit and the elephant featured on the label, and the unique brown bottle are all things that people  associate with Amarula and I can’t see us ever changing that.

Wherever I am in the world, for example, when people find out who I work for they quite often say, ‘Oh, the brand with the elephant’.  There’s a profile and authenticity to it that we wouldn’t want to lose."

Amarula cream liqueur is available in over 150 markets worldwide, with the key ones being the domestic market, Canada, the US, Germany and the UK.  "We have a brand ambassador in each country, though naturally the positioning of the brand is slightly different in each place.

I would say it was a social brand, a drink that is to be enjoyed with groups of friends.  But that differs from country to country. In Brazil, for example, there isn’t much socialising at home so it’s more of a brand you have when you are out, and that’s very different from, say, the South African market where socialising with friends can be done either at home or out and about.

However, our consumers in any market are very similar: individual, confident, approachable and aware of the world around them."  The Amarula team have brand managers in each market who manage the product on a day-to-day basis, though one of the emerging challenges as the brand grows is to keep an international focus, it seems.

"Going forward I would say that we do need to make sure that we keep a global look across the board," explains van Schalkwyk "I mean, as a brand we have grown internationally at a phenomenal rate and while each brand manager understands their market better than anyone else we need to try and ensure that wherever you are in the world when you see an Amarula TV commercial, print advert or piece of point of sale material, you recognise it as Amarula."

Van Schalkwyk says that the team will be concentrating on growth within existing markets rather than aiming for new ones but she is confident that significant growth will be achieved – even in a sector dominated globally by just one brand (namely Baileys).

"While cream liqueurs aren’t necessarily something that people consume on a particularly requent basis – it is more of a treat – I do see a lot of growth happening and I think that will continue. I don’t think that that has been driven by people waking up one morning and saying, ‘Right, we want cream liqueurs’," she says.

"I think that growth and future growth has more to do with increasing competition within the category and that means people are spending more on advertising, more on gaining  distribution, and it’s those things that are pushing the boundaries for cream liqueurs in each market."

And van Schalkwyk is optimisticthat a certain South African brand will benefit.