Baijiu:

Our team initiated, negotiated, established and set up a joint venture in Chengdu between JianNanChun, the second largest baijiu producer in the China, and V&S Sprit, makers of Absolut Vodka. The project lasted four years, and involved extensive market research at consumer, trade, industry and government levels.

We delivered:

This work involved all concept development and testing, consumer and trade market research, liquid profile development, negotiations with suppliers for dry goods and appointment of advertising and creative agencies.

The first new product developed was positioned as a super-premium brand, and designed to fit within the existing JianNanChun portfolio.

The second new product was developed as a low alcohol baijiu, designed to appeal to younger drinkers and targeted at the on premise drinking occasion market.

Premium Beers:

We have a long standing relationship providing market research to Anheuser Busch from 1996 onwards. Our projects include usage and awareness studies, brand tacking, brand development, advertising development and testing, taste tests, new product concept testing and evaluation, packaging testing, stakeholder satisfaction studies, distribution evaluation and planning, margin pool analysis. Markets we have provided support to Anheuser Busch in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Australia.

International Spirits:

We have been key supplier of market research and consulting services to Brown Forman since 2002. Projects we have completed include new brand development, brand switching studies, usage and awareness studies, brand positioning studies, packaging testing, advertising testing and usage and awareness studies. Other projects we have delivered on focus on distribution evaluation, margin pool analysis, alternative communication strategies and distribution mapping. Categories we have worked on include full strength spirits and ready-to-drink formats.

Grape Wines:

Our team has managed multiple projects across a wide variety of research and consultancy disciplines for multiple brand owners. Projects include market sizing, market entry strategies, distributor evaluation, packaging and taste evaluation, advertising testing and pricing and positioning studies.

International Spirits:

We have supported clients with market sizing and evaluation of most efficient and effective distribution channels in Beijing and other key markets. We have completed individual key account audits, distributor interviews and complete channel throughput and retail audits across multiple on-premise channels. Our market sizing studies were designed to also measure the levels of trans-shipment between accounts and markets as well as the presence of parallel and counterfeit products in the supply chain.

Yellow Wine:

Our team has delivered a complete category and industry overview on behalf of leading multinational drinks group with a view to evaluating potential market entry. Work included extensive consumer research, distributor and retailer research, margin pool analysis and key producer profiles. The project also included initial discussions with key candidate companies on their attitudes towards potential joint venture, licensing agreements or potential acquisition.

Ready-to-Drink Cocktails:

We were responsible for all marketing due diligence during the acquisition of Independent Liquor, one of the world’s leading RTD companies. This project took six months to complete and involved extensive consumer research, a complete brand audit of Independent Liquor's portfolio, detailed retailer and distributor studies, margin pool analysis, brand equity evaluation and competitor evaluation. Our client acquired Independent Liquor for AUD 1.0 billion.

International Spirits: Counterfeit Evaluation:

Across multiple markets in China we purchased product from a selection of channels and then sent these for authenticity testing. When testing was complete an evaluation report was compiled which identified the markets and specific channels which had the highest incidence of counterfeit product. These findings were then projected to a national level.

Linie Aquavit:

We carried out extensive consumer and distributor research with our client having a view to launching Aquavit onto the Chinese market. Research included consumer taste tests, evaluation of the brand positioning, pricing strategies and identification of the most suitable positioning for the China market. Initial negotiations were conducted with distributors for key markets.

Mineral Water and Other Categories:

Over the years DDMA has also conducted extensive consumer, retail and trade research and planning projects across other drinks categories.