Aperol eyes growth via meal occasion market

While geographic expansion and deseasonalisation has driven Aperol’s growth, the brand “has not scratched the surface” of the lucrative meal occasion, Gruppo Campari CEO Bob Kunze-Concewitz has said.

The brand “continued to outperform” in the first quarter of 2017, delivering high single digit growth in its core markets of Italy, Germany and Austria, and “very strong” double digit results in new markets such as the US.

Kunze-Concewitz outlined three “chapters” in which Gruppo Campari builds the brand’s growth – geographic expansion, deseasonalisation and ‘other drinking occasions’.

“Aperol is mostly an aperitif, an after-work drink and its expanding into after-dinner etcetera, but in reality we haven’t really tapped a very interesting market which is the meal occasion,” he said.

“If you look at our core markets we’ve already done the geographical expansion, we’re continuing to work on the deseasonalisation, but we really haven’t scratched the surface on other usage occasions. All other markets are primarily in the first phase.”

The brand’s success is tied to the Aperol Spritz serve, which was the second most popular cocktail for “high-end” consumers in London last summer.

In May last year, Campari UK launched an Aperol pop-up bar on a London rooftop.