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The Brand Champions 2020

2019 was a particularly challenging year for million-case-selling spirits brands, which had to weather the turmoil of tariffs and Brexit. But many were able to gallop to victory nevertheless. By The Spirits Business editorial team.

These are our Brand Champions for 2020

Free‐spirited and adventurous – the world’s biggest‐selling spirits brands have been known to take risks as they race their way to the top. Competition is fiercer than it’s ever been, too, with small and ‘craft’ increasingly in demand.

Keeping a captive audience has never been so difficult, but those out in front are finding fresh, inventive ways to retain their extraordinary volumes. The Spirits Business editorial team independently sourced all the data covered in the report, which was then analysed to reveal the brands that grew, those that declined, and those for whom 2019 was a stagnant 12 months.

For each spirit category, a Brand Champion was then chosen after considering a number of factors including sales figures, size, innovation, engagement and marketing creativity.

The 2020 champions comprise international names that appear year on year, but you may notice a few absentees in this year’s compilation. While previous respondents declined to disclose their 2019 volumes, others said that they were unable to supply data this year because of the current Covid‐19 pandemic.

And two former million‐case sellers slipped below the one‐million‐case mark last year, moving from the million‐case ranks into the ‘Almost there’ segment.

See the adjacent column to discover the spirits that sold more than 1m cases last year, as well as The Brand Champions 2020 of each individual category.

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