‘Biggest future market’: Bottega boss outlines plans to increase supply and marketing focus in Asia
Bottega is an Italian brand that is best known for its Bottega Gold prosecco and fancy premium packaging ranging from gold to diamond-encrusted bottles.
Due to its geographical proximity to Europe and the region’s familiarity with prosecco, thus far Bottega has seen Europe as its major target, but according to the firm’s owner and Managing Director Sandro Bottega, the future plans are to place more emphasis on Asia instead.
“Asia has always been important to us as there are many premium consumers here who are interested to spend on alcohol, in markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea,” he told FoodNavigator-Asia.
“Throughout the years, we have developed a strong reputation here but have not delivered huge amounts of merchandise from all parts of our portfolio here previously, mostly because we were not producing enough.
“As popularity increased, this has resulted in many retailers and customers telling us that they were out of stock of our products a lot, and this meant lost opportunities to connect with more consumers.
“Now as a company, we have internally agreed that it is time to revamp our global strategy and will be moving to reduce the quantities sent to Europe, but instead increase the products we send over to Asia in order to satisfy demand here.
“We are confident this is the right path to tread as based on the growth patterns here, we are sure this is going to be our biggest market in the future.”
When asked about the main driving factors behind this confidence in Asia, Bottega stated that this was an amalgamation of many different consumer preferences and lifestyle choices here.
The most obvious reasons are obviously the growth in population size and future economic potential, but it is not only these but also the increasingly refined lifestyles that consumers in Asia choose once they can afford premium purchases,” he said.
“This refined lifestyle always includes a very thorough application and reorganisation of purchasing choices with a focus on high quality, premium products – and in alcohol, brands with strong reputations like ours and those that can present themselves well have a good advantage.”
Other driving trends
In addition to consumption premiumisation, Bottega also highlighted other trends such as low-to-no alcohol and a demand for variety as major drivers in Asia.
“It is a time when an alcohol brand needs to think out of the box and realise that for consumers, at different moments in life they will have different purposes to drink – and this means that we need to provide them with a wide variety of beverage choices if we want them to keep coming back to us,” he said.
“The obvious need for variety is when it comes to pairing products with different foods, and beyond that there is also the need to consider that consumers at different stages of their lives are enjoying alcohol differently.
“For instance, we are increasingly seeing younger consumers enjoying products with an emphasis on being refreshing or having a unique flavour but are lower in alcohol content; whereas older consumers will prize flavours in a very different way and tend to prioritise alcohol content and the smoothness of a drink.
“What’s important is to really understand that consumers can be very different and that we need to ensure we have a wide, interesting, high-quality range of drinks that can appeal to various walks of life.”
