Diageo to roll out Sminoff Apple and Lime

Diageo is to roll out Smirnoff Apple and Smirnoff Lime across the on and off-trades following a successful six-month trial in Bristol bars and off-licenses.

The move is one of a number of initiatives across several categories revealed last week, including a new coffee flavour for Baileys and a scheme to help licensees boost malt whisky sales.

Diageo innovation commercialisation director Steve Hamilton said the Smirnoff flavours had delivered double digit growth in the vodka category in bars where they had been trialled. Sold at a 10% premium to Smirnoff Red, the flavoured vodkas are served simply with either lemonade or cola.

"Other flavoured vodkas have gone the cocktail route but ours is much more of a mass market proposition," he said. "In the US flavoured vodkas make up 16% of the category, here it is much lower — less than 1% — so we think there is real potential for growth."

The company is planning a big marketing campaign to support the roll-out scheduled for this summer. It is also putting £1m into an advertising campaign for the new Baileys Coffee flavour, which will join Mint and Crème Caramel at Easter.

Hamilton also unveiled a new Malt whisky plinth to showcase four of its whiskies — Glenkinchie, Dalwhinnie, Singleton of Dufftown and Talisker — on the back bar. The plinth is being trialled along with a new mixed case offer, which the producer hopes will make it easier for licensees to stock different sorts of whisky.

"Buying a case of whisky is a huge investment so we hope by offering this mixed case of one of each of the whiskies, it will make it easier for the on-trade to offer a wide range of malts," he said. Diageo is producing an initial run of 1,000 cases, each of which includes a plinth, to see how popular the idea is before extending the initiative.

Hamilton also ruled out an imminent roll out of Guinness Red, which has been on trial in the Central TV region for the last two years.

"We are very pleased at how Guinness Red is performing in the test region but are still in the process of working out the best way to make sure the variant can be expanded successfully across the UK in the long-term," he said.