Bacardi Limited is the largest American privately held, family-owned spirits company in the world. Initialy it was known for its Bacardi white rum, currently it has a portfolio of more than 200 brands. The company was founded in 1862, it was a family-owned business for seven generations. Currently Bacardi employs 6,000 people, manufactures at 29 facilities in 16 markets on four continents, with sales in more than 170 countries including the United States, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Germany, Italy, China, Brazil and Russia. In 157 years of existing Bacardi rum has won more than 550 awards for quality and product profile.
I am not going to focus at every single brand in Bacardi portfolio as its more than 50 brands in it but lets look into the portfolio by category. Withing each catagory of Bacardi portfolio there is an Umbrella Brands and these are hierarchical in terms of priority. There is a master brand in each category. Rum is obviously Owned by Bacardi Rums, Vodka is Grey Goose Vodka, Whisky is Dewar’s Blend Scotch Whisky and Tequila is now topped by Patron Tequila.
So, the main focus of Bacardi Limited portfolio goes to:
BACARDI RUM the world’s best-selling rum brand and the world’s most awarded rum, as well as the world’s most awarded spirit.
DEWAR’S Blended Scotch whisky the world’s most awarded blended Scotch whisky.
Patron Tequila – Ultra Premium Tequila
BOMBAY SAPPHIRE gin the top-valued and fastest-growing premium gin in the world.
GREY GOOSE vodka the world leader in super premium vodka
The Master brands in portfolio are premium quality products, those brands are the best in their class. Then there are Fighter/ Flanker brands that help to boost the category portfolio. Bacardi Rum is flanked by Castillo Rum, Grey Goose Vodka by Eristoff Vodka, Dewar’s Whisky by William Lawson Scotch and Patron Tequila by Cazadores Tequila. The fighter brands can be as famous as the Master brands but they serve different purpose. Its mostly “entry level” brands. Eg. William Lawsons Blended Scotch is one of the biggest selling imported blended scotch whisky in Russia and it is also very affordable.
Managing brand portfolio is not that easy, especially if you have so many brands under one umbrella but it also has lots of positive outcome especially in penetrating different markets in different countries as well as following current trends in the liquor industry.
In terms of reputation Bacardi Limited in 2019 was placed on #87 in Forbes-published Reputation Institute’s Global RepTrak® 100 – which measures the reputation of multinational companies across 15 countries and 20 different industries – for seventh consecutive year.
“Consumers are at the heart of everything we do at Bacardi as we are all about bringing people together, in real life, to celebrate moments that matter. It is rewarding to know that once again, consumers recognize us for being a good corporate citizen. I raise my glass to our talented teams across the world, as they are the driving force behind the positive impact on the communities in which we operate.” – Mahesh Madhavan, Chief Executive Officer, Bacardi Limited
Bacardi constanly gets involved in sponsoring music and sport events. In past Bacardi was using sexual connctation in their images and in the past years they started to focus on ordinary people. By changing this they changed the whole communication strategy and the relatioship with their customers. By focusing on people, their story, their life, Bacardi repidly reponds to changes in the current world of trends in marketing and brand management.
We live In times when consumers wants to know everything about the brand, its attitudes towards the environment and workers. Bacardi Limited is very involved with corporate reponsibility. Bacardi Limited have built the reputations of both the Corporate Brand and The Product Brands in the eyes of the consumer. Bacardi is commited to marketing their products to the customers of the legal drinking age. Bacardi ensures safety of its employees and the use of resources to maximize the reduction of carbon footprint and waste. Bacardi constantly strives to give its employees the opportunity to grow and develop within the global family of brands and corporate entities. Comapny is encouraged to support community projects in education, environment, health and social services, arts and culture, and disaster relief assistance.
In conclusion, Bacardi Limited is one of the best companies with a very broad brand portfolio in the liquor industry. They are very open in their business. They are very much involved in corporate responsibility and they do reach their targets in managing the brands. The reputation of the company is shown by being a #87 in Forbes-published Reputation Institute’s Global RepTrak® 100.
UCT 2020 