Bollinger refuses ‘crazy promotions’

Bollinger broke a new record in terms of turnover last year, but suffered a slight volume decline because it didn’t participate in “crazy promotions”, said president of the Champagne house Jérôme Philipon during an interview with the drinks business last month in Aÿ.

Bollinger decided not to supply Champagne promotions at the end of 2014 in UK supermarkets, but consequently suffered a slight volume decline

While the brand has created new records in volume and value sales in 2011, 2012 and 2013, Philipon said that last year the brand “broke another record” in 2014 concerning revenue for the company, but admitted it was down “slightly in volume terms”.

According to Philipon the drop was from the “UK exclusively – because we didn’t participate in the chaos of the last six months of 2014, when there was double discounting on wines and spirits in retailers, so there might be £10 off and then a 25% reduction too, which meant that in all retailers you could buy the top brands for £20-22.”

Continuing he told db, “We decided not to supply that kind of crazy promotion, and that has cost us volume at the end of last year, but our volume reduction is not huge, and it’s all from the UK due to Special Cuvée [Bollinger’s Brut NV] not participating in big promotions.”

Some of that volume fall-off in the UK was made up by other markets, with Italy and Switzerland providing a source of growth in Europe, and, outside it, Japan, the USA and Australia.

Spectre will launch on 6 November

Boosting value sales of Bollinger was last year’s RD 2002 launch, which Philipon said represented a record in terms of volume and turnover, as well as small and large formats of the Champagne brand: with half bottles and magnums both showing sales growth.

Summing up on last year’s sales trends, Philipon stated that the brand would remain “committed to our desire that Bollinger won’t be discounted down to crazy levels.”

Nevertheless, he added that Bollinger “doesn’t want to disengage totally from supermarkets because that is where Champagne is bought in the UK.”

He also admitted that although the recommended retail price of Bollinger Special Cuvée is £45, “the amount sold at that price in the UK is very small”, pointing out that “at least 80% of Champagne is sold on promotion in retail.”

Looking ahead to the brand’s performance this year, Philipon said he was “optimistic”, above all because of Bollinger’s partnership with James Bond – this year will see another film featuring the fictional secret agent with the launch of Spectre in 6 November, which will be the last one to feature Daniel Craig as 007.

“We will again be a partner with Bond and we will leverage our partnership in a big way, more than we’ve ever done before,” he said, revealing that Bollinger would definitely be repeating a special edition Champagne for the film.