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Sunshine on the Slopes
Written by: Hayley Bromley
Date: 27th November 2023
Looking after Export for Cuckoo means being creative in the approach to selling our fantastic brand overseas. The pillars of our business are always at the forefront of a pitch; Quality, Sustainability, Provenance & Community, however in new markets we often need an even bigger point of difference.
I love to focus on the Community aspect surrounding Cuckoo and as we all saw at Nestival this year – what an amazing community we have. Therefore, bringing community into a strategy for selling abroad was going be at the heart of the next target.
It will be no surprise to many of you that Cuckoo Sunshine is our bestselling Gin. Maybe because it’s the closest thing we actually get to Sunshine in Lancashire……or because the bursting berry flavours coupled with a touch of sweetness from our farm produced honey give it the Wow factor.
The seed was planted. Focus on our best-selling product and figure a way to create a community around it, somewhere far away from Brindle. One which does have a fair bit of Sunshine would be nice too.
Next stop – find a community that already exists and drop some Sunshine right in the middle. Better than that, find a community that not only have a commonality but love to socialise with a drink too. Bingo – Apres Ski! And we can do this in the UK too – thanks Chill Factore!
“Sunshine on the Slopes” – the seedling was now well and truly sprouting into a tree. It’s tagline does what it says on the tin and meant we were no longer selling the story of a distillery that used to be a farm, in a little Lancastrian village, but selling a Drink & experience that would be enjoyed by the masses in ski resorts around the World!!
Ok calm down Hayley, let’s start with one new country shall we. After all, the idea is great, but we need to actually come up with the drink, choose a country, find a distributor, get some Apres Ski venues to talk to us, create a marketing campaign around it, change the back labels for France, find a launch venue, ship some product and maybe then we can get excited.
It took almost 6 months to get my skis in a row, convince Mark I wasn’t crazy when I asked for some bright red sunglasses that could form part of our social media campaign out in France, but here we are, ready to go live. It’s been a whole team effort to make this idea come to life and as the Winter resorts in the French Alps get ready to welcome Cuckoo, we are certainly ready to celebrate the launch at the famous Dick’s Tea Bar in Val D’Sere.
Follow our socials to see Cuckoo Sunshine make its debut on the slopes of Val D’sere when the resort opens next month and if you want to emulate the Sunshine on the Slopes experience in the comfort of your own home, check out our brand new website, buy yourself a bottle of Cuckoo Sunshine and follow the recipe below. Join the social media fun here too, tag us in your posts with the #cuckoosunshine @cuckoogin for a chance to win a pair of our snazzy Sunshine glasses.
