Allied set to kickstart liqueur category with Tia Maria spin off
Allied Domecq Spirits & Wine (ADUK) is looking to reinvigorate the liqueur category with a major expansion of its Tia Maria brand.
As part of a five-year plan to treble the size of the Tia Maria equity, ADUK has announced the launch of Tia Lusso (pictured), a new premium coffee and rum cream liqueur concept aimed directly at young female drinkers.
Cathryn Sleight, marketing director for ADUK, predicted that the introduction of Tia Lusso, meaning "luxury" in Italian, will help grow the liqueur category by 40 per cent over the next five years.
"The decision to launch Tia Lusso follows extensive research into the lives and needs of 23 to 28-year-old independent women and represents an extremely bold move for the company," she said.
"ADUK has become much more a consumer led rather than a marketing driven organisation and we feel extremely confident that we have a greater understanding of the needs of our target audience."
The launch of Tia Lusso, which will be available in 70cl and 1.5 litre bottles similar in design to the Tia Maria packaging, will be supported by an £11m marketing investment.
Under the umbrella theme of "You just know", ADUK will be launching a £6m TV, cinema and press campaign earmarked for September as well as a major £2.5m sampling campaign designed to reach more than one million consumers over the next 12 months.
In addition to the introduction of Lusso, ADUK has repositioned the Tia Maria parent brand as part of an extra £7m investment. A new marketing campaign will focus on the theme: "Ignite the power of the sixth sense".
"We're refining our core target audience from 18 to 24-year-olds to a more sophisticated and self-assured 23 to 28-year-old female consumer and we're putting a considerable amount of money behind Tia Maria to get the message across," said Ms Sleight.
