What is the role of annual releases such as the Home Collection?

Annual releases have a long track record of success in travel retail, where The Macallan is actively sought out by collectors and aficionados. The brand is so rich in heritage and history and so active in seeking out unique collaborations that there is huge scope for product innovation and a wealth of stories to tell. Given the draw the brand has and the huge appeal with collectors, they will often go to great lengths to complete a series which clearly has huge appeal for retailers.

Annual releases also fuel the in-store engagement and activations for which The Macallan has forged an incredibly strong reputation in the channel. The travel retail exclusive Concept Series epitomised this, with a series of three launches at scale bringing to life the playful stories and collaborations behind these annual releases.

Can you outline the strategy to drive further growth in luxury spirits across the group?

Our long-term vision hasn’t significantly changed: for everyone at Edrington our business is underpinned by our ethos of giving more by growing our portfolio of exceptional brands. For the Edrington GTR business that means leading with The Macallan to spearhead our premiumisation strategy. Our confidence in what this channel offers in terms of brand building and shopper engagement through incomparable experiences remains unwavering.

While prestige remains the fastest growing segment of our category, we recognise there remains significant scope for further growth. Scarcity and desire as with any luxury product, remains the key to building our brand equity and our position on this has not waivered throughout the pandemic.

We continue to challenge ourselves on where our product is available to purchase, how widely it is distributed and in what retail environment. We also remain passionate about leveraging partnerships and collaborations to challenge ourselves and champion true craftmanship, to remain fresh and relevant.

How in particular is Edrington positioned to take advantage of evolving consumer purchasing trends and curiosity about premium spirits?

The Macallan has built a huge amount of equity with consumers as perhaps the name in premium single malt, which puts us in a very strong position when shoppers first start to explore the category.

There’s a lot of talk today about authenticity as well, with consumers looking to engage with brands that have genuine tradition, quality and provenance. The Macallan’s reputation was forged centuries ago and our quality credentials speak for themselves – from our industry-leading cask management and sourcing program to our state-of-the-art distillery.

This quality story also ties into a broader consumer trend towards ‘drinking less but drinking better’. This inherently leads consumers down a premiumisation path that we have been leading as a brand in travel retail for many years now.

In terms of digitalisation, we are certainly advancing on our journey. I led a three-month global project on digital commerce for Edrington last summer, which was initiated by our Board in response to the changing purchase demands of consumers in lockdown. I quickly realised that alcohol was somewhat lagging in this area, primarily because consumer demand really hasn’t been there in the past. We’ve made a number of changes internally and brought in additional expertise to pivot in response to this opportunity and have delivered some exciting results, particularly in the Americas and China.

Outside of digital as a sales channel we’ve also really stepped up our game in terms of digital engagement: launching Concept Number 3 during the height of the pandemic forced us to really accelerate this part of our strategy and major in the online components of the launch. Our goal was to bring the launch alive for those who couldn’t travel and experience it in-store, and I think we really delivered on that.