Interview, Part 2: Campari America Managing Director Melanie Batchelor

In the second part of our interview, Campari America’s new managing director Melanie Batchelor discusses how the company is addressing prominent trends in the spirits market, the progress of its upscale Rare division, and what the future holds for the 6.2-million-case Campari America business.

SND: How are you leveraging trends in the market to drive growth within the portfolio?

Batchelor: We’re still seeing a lot of interest in the aperitivo occasion in the U.S., and if you look at aperitivo in the consumption of Aperol, versus Italy, we’re only selling a fraction on a per-capita consumption basis. The low-abv cocktail trend really leans into the opportunity with Aperol Spritz. We’ve also integrated a number of new brands into the portfolio, many of those in our Rare division, for example Lallier Champagne and Bisquit & Dubouché, an historic Cognac brand with very low awareness in the U.S. We’ve spent the last few years building the positioning and we’ve relaunched the packaging. So the brand is now ready for expansion.

SND: How is progress overall in the higher-end Rare unit?

Batchelor: The Rare division plays two roles. Firstly, it’s going to be a key pillar of growth for Campari as we build out our premium portfolio and our capabilities in terms of luxury marketing. But I’m also excited about the halo it creates on the portfolio as a whole. If you look at some of the expressions within Grand Marnier, like our Grand Marnier cuvees, bringing those expressions to life have a halo effect on the Grand Marnier brand.

We’ve also had a lot of success in selling some of what we call our opulent marques. Glen Grant is an important brand for us, a single malt Scotch whisky that’s much bigger in Europe than in the U.S., but recently we brought in some bottles of a 60-year-old Glen Grant, which we were selling for $30,000, and we sold quite a few of those. The Rare division is allowing us to have success selling some of these very specialized products.

SND: How is Campari America positioned as the spirits market continues to normalize post-pandemic?

Batchelor: We’re seeing a return to what I call more normal trends, with consumers concerned about inflation and how that impacts their spending power. That said, we’re very happy with the trajectory. In Q1 we grew 23%, so we had a very good start of the year and we have a lot of momentum in the business. And importantly, we’re also seeing as an industry that spirits are outperforming other alcoholic beverage categories.

The second thing that will help us is the return to in-real-life experiences, because that’s really important for our lifestyle brands. At the same time, we’re also still seeing that in-home cocktailing remains a hot trend, with Aperol Spritz the most searched cocktail on Google. So consumers are still experimenting with cocktails at home. The combination of those trends makes us feel really good that despite some uncertainty from an economic perspective, we’re very much poised for growth.

Tagged : Aperol, Campari America, Grand Marnier

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