Reh Kendermann has just achieved a key goal for their No. 1 German Wine Brand, Black Tower. Within the last 12 months over 14 million bottles of Black Tower wines have been sold worldwide, a new record for the brand.
At the beginning of the millennium, before the world awoke to a global recession, Reh Kendermann’s objective was to achieve sales of 12 million bottles, or 1 million cases, worldwide. This goal was reached in 2008 and in the last 5 years a further 2 million bottles have been added, making a total of well over 14 million bottles per year.
Along with other “old world” wine brands, Black Tower had enormous success in the 70’s and 80’s. Dramatic changes to the market and consumer taste meant the following years were increasingly challenging. Today the situation has been reversed and in the UK, Black Tower sales are 5 times the volume of the 80’s.
With continuing improvements to the quality of the wines, the development of a range of varietals and styles to meet consumers’ needs and expectations and targeted PR and marketing activity to extend the Black Tower fan base, dedicated support for the brand Black Tower began a steady rise back to the position of being the No. 1 German wine brand worldwide.
After extensive consumer research on three continents the iconic split bottle design was introduced in 2010 along with exciting new products such as Pink Bubbly, a lightly sparkling rosé, and B by Black Tower, a range of lower alcohol wines at 5.5% abv. The new bottle design and the recent two range extensions with their own unique packaging giving extraordinary stand-out on shelf have been key drivers in increasing sales so that Black Tower is now showing exemplary growth of +11.63% in volume, bucking the current negative wine market trend of -2% (Nielsen UK off trade MAT 20/7/13). Moreover, Black Tower Rosé is now the best-selling European rosé brand in the UK off trade with growth of 39.15% vs overall negative development of rosé wines at -3%. Black Tower has also developed a number of market-relevant concepts in other areas, including fridge-friendly bag-in-box with show-stopping presentation.
Along with consistently outstanding wine, Black Tower has supported the brand with a comprehensive marketing campaign. On pack a series of unique designs have enhanced on shelf impact during key seasons including the run-up to Christmas and summer, making Black Tower unique in its outstanding presentation. Social media activity has also grown significantly with a huge increase in fans for the brand online.
A first ever ‘design your own’ bottle competition last autumn attracted an enormous flow of ideas and images from consumers and the winning entry, from mother of 3 Rebecca Beesley, was based around the brand sign off ‘easy ends the day’ and combined music style with Black Tower icons. Even the brand logo was hand drawn by Rebecca and over 500k bottles have been sold in the UK during the summer.
Combined with strong marketing and promotional support directed at the point of purchase sale Black Tower has eclipsed those pre recession aims and in the last year has achieved global sales of over 14 million bottles.
Nik Schritz, Reh Kendermann’s Managing Director, said, “Reaching sales of over 14 million bottles per year reflects the true strength of Black Tower as a great global brand. Awards for consistent quality, meeting consumer needs with new products and strongly supporting the brand alongside our retail partners are the secret of success, and will continue to be the foundation for further growth and development of the brand.”
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