Using in-depth category insight to identifying new opportunities for Edinburgh Gin in the RTD category
Edinburgh Gin, owned by Ian Macleod Distillers, is an established brand within Gin and the Ready-to-Drink (RTD) category.
Securing shelf space for RTDs in UK supermarkets is becoming increasingly competitive, with the emergence of new brands such as MOTH and Funkin, and the growth of Cocktail RTDs alongside Spirit-based pre-mixed RTDs.
With limited market data available on RTDs, the team at Edinburgh Gin wanted to gather insight into the category to identify:
Areas to improve their core range and protect existing shelf space
New opportunities to drive incremental growth through NPD
Objective
Approach
Opportunity - know your category/consumer:
The Edinburgh Gin team used TRKR’s IDI workshop process to identify critical gaps in their knowledge of the category, along with any key assumptions they’d been making up to this point.
An in-depth survey of 2,000 UK RTD drinkers delivered insight into topics such as:
Cocktail versus Spirit-based RTDs - who is driving the trend in each sector, as well as key preferences
Competitor analysis - profiling different brands
Drinker profile - not just age/income/region….but WHY they buy different sectors and brands
Key opportunities - identifying commercial opportunities to grow traction with category shoppers
Outcome
The insight gathered was used for the following:
Enhance the level of category knowledge shared with retail buyers
Re-assess the launch of Edinburgh Gin RTD products
Identify opportunities for grow sales - both through the existing range and NPD opportunities to attract further consumers into the brand
“Rather than making assumptions on the RTD category, the insight gathered by TRKR helped us identify opportunities to protect our space on shelf and introduce 2 new products.”
Joanne Motion, Ian Macleod Distillers