Davidoff brand stretching

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Contrary to what many people think, Davidoff is not a "luxury good provider": it is first and foremost a provider of tobacco products, mainly cigarettes. Indeed, of all the Davidoff products, Davidoff cigarettes by far generate the highest sales, dwarfing the sales of all other Davidoff products. Why, then, do people think that Davidoff is a luxury good provider, and not a tobacco company? The answer is simple: marketing.

 

 

"Alibi advertising opportunity"

"Successful trademarks such as Cool Water and Goodlife fragrances as well as Davidoff Coffee were developed to create alibi advertising opportunities for the Davidoff cigarette brand." This statement is made in an internal BAT report entitled "Davidoff Strategic Brand Review". The full paragraph reads as follows:

 

"In the dark market environment Davidoff has invested in TMDs, Direct Mailing and BTL. Successful Davidoff TMDs such as Cool Water and Goodlife fragrances as well as Davidoff Coffee were developed to create alibi advertising opportunities for the brand. These have made ATL market communication possible even in dark markets such as Germany and Taiwan."

Note: A dark market is a highly restricted marketing environment; TDM (trademark diversification, also called brand stretching) is the promotion of a cigarette brand via the marketing of non-tobacco products under the same brand; ATL (above the line) means marketing via the mass media (print, television, radio, posters/billboards and cinema); BTL (below the line) means marketing via methods other than mass media.

 

The non-tobacco Davidoff products are carefully chosen to establish "a unique brand positioning world-wide", with a claim to "offer connoisseurs supreme pleasure", in other words those who enjoy "the good life". The non-tobacco products include fragrances (Davidoff Adventure, Davidoff Cool Water, Davidoff Hot Water and Silver Shadow), watches, leather goods, pens and coffee.

 

Until 2005, the sophisticated cursive Davidoff logo was used for both tobacco and non-tobacco products (see image on the right). In 2005, the Davidoff group separated clearly the two branches. A new, Roman letter type, logo was introduced for the non-tobacco products, probably to make it less obvious (and less easy to challenge in countries with weak legislation) that the non-tobacco products are a marketing device using brand stretching for the promotion of the Davidoff cigarette trademark, as is stated in the BAT report.

 

 

However, the separation between the two logos is only superficial. To keep the connection alive in the mind of people, a typographical trick is used: a typeface inversion between the logo and the product designation underneath it, as shown below:

 

 

In 2006, Imperial Tobacco acquired the Davidoff trademark for more than half a billion Euros. Obviously, the multinational appreciates the "timeless" value of the brand, which has been built over the years and continues to be built using a very sophisticated - and successful - trademark diversification scheme. A good analysis of this scheme is again provided by the internal BAT document mentioned above:

 

"Davidoff's marketing communication has successfully portrayed the [cigarette] brand's premium positioning. It is consistent and provides synergetic communication of brand imagery "through-the-line".

Sponsorship activities aimed to reinforce brand's premium positioning via high quality music, fashion and sports events.

The successful use of TMD in dark market environment to support brand positioning with Davidoff coffee and Cool Water fragrance has enabled brand communication despite the advertising restrictions imposed by key markets such as Germany and Taiwan.