The new products will be available in Dubai Duty Free (DDF) “in the next few weeks”, according to Andrew Stokes, head of international sales at Walkers. The company is producing a camel tin, featuring iconic images of Dubai – and a tartan saddle – with camel-shaped shortbread biscuits inside. The camel biscuits will also be available in smaller cardboard cartons – with both ranges exclusive to DDF.
“That was really sitting down with [DDF’s] buying and merchandising teams, in terms of taking a brand that has international recognition, but doing something very specific around their customer base, and around Dubai as a destination,” said Stokes.
Dubai is key hub
He said the airport retailer was a major focus for Walkers’ international business: “We’re putting a lot of effort in there at the moment, in terms of very specific branded initiatives which are exclusive to them, recognising it’s a key shop window, a key hub for that region.
“The Middle East has become quite an important region for us over the last five or six years; we’re in all the Middle East markets, but I’d say the UAE and Dubai is probably what we consider to be the key market for us. Dubai Duty Free has certainly been very helpful in giving the brand profile, not just in the Middle East, but also there’s a lot of Indians who travel through there as a hub, and Chinese as well,” he added.
Stokes said Emirates airline was also an important customer for the firm’s twin-finger packs, and working with “quality airlines” like the Dubai carrier was part of a concerted effort by Walkers to develop its brand profile.
Half of Walkers’ business is international, and Stokes said this was down to many decades of work pushing the brand at international events: “We’ve been attending trade exhibitions since the mid 1970s, and that’s really how we built our business up, in terms of meeting people from all over the world. Over the years, we’ve enjoyed a lot of value out of meeting different distributors and retailers from international markets.
“We’re in over a hundred markets – we’re not necessarily looking to prospect new markets, but to develop emerging markets. Areas of particular interest at the moment would be China and certainly India, and certain South American markets as well,” he added.
Shortbread ‘synonymous with Scotland’
And while Walkers is now a firmly international brand, its Scottish roots remain a major advantage, according to Stokes: “We’ve traded on our provenance, on Scottish authenticity, very strongly. What that does is it gives you a very defendable brand position – in all the markets in the world we deal with, shortbread is now synonymous with Scotland, so it gives us a very strong position in terms of the origin of the product.
“What we’re able to do with major customers like Dubai Duty Free is trade on that provenance and international presence, and make that relevant to their environment,” he added.