Angostura rum punches foreign market

Angostura Rum Punch is set to make it big in the export market. Described as a concoction that stimulates the senses and inspires the imagination, Caribbean Club Rum Punch is going to be on foreign shelves soon. It is a range of flavoured rum punches of Caribbean origin that include Passion Fruit, Pineapple, Traditional, (comprising of a citrus base of lime and lemon) and Mango, their latest. The Caribbean Club Mango Rum Punch flavour was launched recently, and based on consumer sampling, it’s been described as a hit. When the first three flavours were introduced, the passion-fruit immediately shot out in front as a clear favourite.  But since then Mango caught on. As a result, it has been chosen as the flagship of the Caribbean Club range.

The average Trinidadian enjoys a good rum punch, but a true connoisseur will appreciate variety, especially in the form of a new recipe that Angostura has created. Alex Thomas, Caribbean Club representative noted that, “Rum Punch on a whole is a very unique product to the world spirits market. In the Caribbean it is very popular, especially to the tourist trade. Caribbean Club was designed to be more of a duty-free and a tourist product, hence it’s targetted to the tourist industry.” According to Corporate Com-munications Manager Giselle La Ronde-West, “this is the case of  taking a piece of the Caribbean with you. It is a great product that has a lot of potential.” Angostura was the first to develop rum punch in Trinidad and Tobago in the 1950’s and has been extremely popular since. This is the first time that Angostura is actually creating a new flavoured Rum Punch. “The reason why we went with ‘Caribbean Club’ is for branding power,” he said, adding, “it is basically an umbrella of brands and it gives Angostura a very strong and powerful name in the international market, where it is faced with a lot of competitors. This is a unique product that does not exist anywhere in the world or has been marketed anywhere else in the world.” Caribbean Club has been marketed up the Islands (under the supervision of Export Manager of Caribbean Sales Andre Attal) and has already made a niche.
 

Caribbean Club is mainly sold duty-free. The positioning for local market is mainly for off-premise supermarkets. Regio-nally and Internationally it will also be available in hotels, bars, restaurants and the cruise ship industry. As part of the focus they will be launching this year an entire point of sale, print, media campaign which should take effect as early as next month, just in time for Christmas. “In a sense, what we are trying to say with Caribbean Club and how we are making ourselves different is obvious from how the brand is portrayed; is a true representation of the Caribbean. In essence this is what the communication would be saying and how we are different from everybody else,” Thomas added. The promotion for Caribbean Club will involve everything from events, sponsorship, sampling on the beach, restaurants, tourist destinations and supermarkets, extending eventually into clubs. But at this point they are sticking to what it was originally meant to be; a duty-free, tourist product. “Angostura is the first to market this brand of Rum Punch in terms of a concerted effort of branded Rum Punch to export, so the imagery you will be getting is really sun, sea and sand... fun, marine life... all the things that make up the Caribbean. Caribbean Club has a different look, a different feel. It’s the only Rum Punch in the Caribbean to be going global and is part of the CL World Brands. A new life of rum punch, taking it to another level.”