Smirnoff tops drinks league table as luxury brands suffer

Published by the consultancy Intangible Business, The Power 100 ranks wine and spirit brands according to financial performance and consumer perception.

In the newly published list for 2010, Smirnoff leads the way by quite some margin, followed by Johnnie Walker, which clung on to second place despite having 20 per cent shaved off its score.

Losing brands​

The big losers of the year were at the premium end of the market. Champagne was particularly hard hit as brands like Dom Perignon, Lanson, Nicolas Feuillatte and Taittinger all dropped out of the top-100.

Stuart Whitwell, joint managing director of Intangible Business said: “The biggest brands have taken quite a battering, marking the end to a 15 year drive to premiumisation. This has been replaced with a drive to value which new entrants are taking advantage of.​

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“It will be interesting to see if consumers return to the big brands once their economic situation improves. Or perhaps greater choice and innovation has changed the landscape for good.”​

New entrants ​

In total, there were nine new brands in the top 100 including Svedka, Russian Standard, Wyborowa, Aperol, Clan Campbell, William Lawson’s, Clan MacGregor, Three Olives and Wild Turkey.

Whitwell picked out vodka as one of the strongest performers in the 2010 list, with new products coming from established companies and new value entrants.

Whisky also had a pretty good year accounting for four of the nine new entrants in the list. This result helped Scotland achieve number two spot in terms of countries with the most brands in the top 100. With 16 brands, Scotland came in behind the US which boasted 18 brands in the league table.

To read the full report on the Power 100, please click here​.