First Drinks pushes liqueur knowledge

First Drinks is concentrating on the liqueurs and specialities in its portfolio with a research programme to help retailers drive sales.

The first phase of the study commenced this week and First Drinks is hopeful that its findings will be implemented in stores by early 2011.

The programme aims to identify what drives purchases within the category and how consumers view the products and brands on offer. Ultimately this will allow retailers to better merchandise liqueurs, which due to its size is often not well understood as a category.

The continuing trend for drinking at home provides the off-trade with an opportunity to “encourage consumers to further explore liqueurs and specialities”.

Nick Williamson, marketing controller for premium white spirits at First Drinks, said: “We want to help grow the liqueurs and specialities category. The sector encompasses a vast range of products. Retailer aisles can look very cluttered and uninspiring which makes shopping the category incredibly difficult and time consuming.   
 
“Often shoppers are unsure of how to best use or mix a product and there is currently very little in the way of education at the point of purchase to aid this. By investing in this research, we aim to gain a much better understanding of how consumers shop.

“Ultimately, we will be looking to work with retailers to re-merchandise the category and ease navigation in a way that makes sense to shoppers.  The long-term benefit will encourage more frequent purchase with both existing and new drinkers and ensure sustained growth and profit for the off-trade.”

Rupert Millar, 17.11.2010