The Macallan

2019/20 was another remarkable year for The Macallan as the brand continued to redefine the boundaries of luxury and make progress towards its vision of becoming the world’s ultimate spirit. Despite a volatile external environment, the brand’s power score climbed for the fourth consecutive year, underpinning a strong commercial performance that saw contribution increase by double digits.

Over the last 12 months, in all areas of our work, we stayed true to our long-term approach of creating value by following the brand’s guiding principles of mastery, creativity and excellence in execution.

Mastery

A new Whisky Mastery Team was assembled in the summer. Collectively, this diverse team has over 100 years of experience in the making of Scotch Whisky and adheres to a singular philosophy of uniting “art and science” when crafting The Macallan.

The command of our craft continued to shine through in the exceptional quality of our high age spirit. This was reflected in the brand’s sustained dominance in the prestige whisky segment, defined as expressions that are 25-years-old and above.

The Macallan Estate, the cradle of the brand’s rich history and heritage, established itself as one of Scotland’s most successful brand experience destinations. The Estate is integral to the brand’s history and embodies our commitment to sustainability, a feature that is as fundamental today as it was in 1824 when the distillery was first registered. The distillery’s harmonious and unique design has attracted visitors from around the world, winning the prestigious RIAS Andrew Doolan Best Building in Scotland Award and being acclaimed as one of the UK’s finest new buildings.

Creativity

Through our creative vision, “Make the Call”, our global brand campaign developed into the acclaimed “Turning Point” film, which shed light on moments that have defined the course of The Macallan. As part of the brand’s media partnership with Wallpaper* and the New York Times, we launched “The Macallan Conversations”, a series of interviews on the life choices of inspiring individuals. The evolution of our brand campaigns towards richer content creation generated a further collaboration with the renowned chefs the Roca brothers on the release of a new film, “Distilling Scotland”, which can be seen on Amazon Prime.

The opportunity to drive innovation through new products and services to create unrivalled brand experiences for our consumers was also accelerated. Highlights such as the launch of Edition 5 in New York, and The Macallan Gallery in Taiwan provided immersive experiences for thousands of established and new fans of the brand, which were amplified to millions through our digital channels.

Executional excellence

The ambition to build meaningful relationships with our consumers took centre stage in 2019. We enhanced our Direct to Consumer engagement capabilities to extend beyond e-commerce and include transformational in-store experiences.

This was accomplished with the opening of two Boutiques at London Heathrow and Dubai International Airports, as well as the refurbishment of our existing Boutique at Taipei Taoyuan. The performance of these Boutiques has been very promising, showing a strong start in their first year.

With a renewed push towards owned e-commerce, sales on these platforms grew by strong double digits. The Estate Boutique in Speyside performed particularly well, thanks in part to particularly strong prestige performance. In the Americas, The Macallan unveiled 13 new Spiritual Homes. Working with venues at the pinnacle of their trade, these projects were centred on co-creation and a partnership with Conde Nast Traveller, to communicate and celebrate perfect experiences.

After yet another exceptional year, we will build on the brand’s fundamental strengths to prepare for the economic and geopolitical headwinds that lie ahead. Driven by our three pillars of mastery, creativity and executional excellence, The Macallan looks to the future with confidence.