‘Next 10 years will be Bacardi’s best’, says CEO

Bacardi rum is seeking to combat its long-running decline by “having the same set of leaders driving the same strategies for the next 10 years” under its new CEO.

Mahesh Madhavan became CEO of Bacardi Limited in October last year

According to Brand Champions data, Bacardi rum’s volume sales have been in decline for a number of years, and in 2017 fell 2.7% to 16.8 million cases. In 2013, the brand sold 19.1m cases.

Speaking to The Spirits Business, Mahesh Madhavan, who became CEO of parent company Bacardi Limited last October, said frequent changes in top management, including CMO roles, resulted in inconsistent brand strategies that hampered Bacardi’s performance.

He said that to remedy this, Bacardi’s new ‘Do What Moves You’ campaign will “remain in place for the next 10 years”.

Madhavan added: “That’s why I keep saying that our next 10 years will be our best 10 years, because I want our teams, companies, partners and customers to know that we are going to have the same set of leaders diving the same strategies for the next decade.”

Bacardi rum will continue to up its focus on premiumisation and diversification by creating a pricing ladder similar to that in other brown spirits, the CEO claimed.

“The idea is to build a very premium portfolio, alongside the core range of Superior, Gold and Black, to straddle different price points. It’s not a short run; it’s something that’s going to take time to build.”

This year, the brand launched premium line extensions Bacardi Añejo Cuatro and Bacardi Gran Reserva Diez to sit alongside its Bacardi Reserva Ocho and Bacardi Gran Reserva Limitada expressions.

To read Madhavan’s full interview, see the August 2018 edition of The Spirits Business, out now.