Brand evangelist, digital marketer, cigar and spirits expert specializing in consumer tasting and educational events. Matthias made the long trek from his hometown of Portland, Oregon to New York City in 2007, and in nine years has hosted more than 120 events and helped promote and launch dozens of cigar and whiskey brands in the U.S. In 2016, he joined the Cigar Journal Tasting Panel, blind-reviewing pre and new release cigars.
May 22, 2013 (Basel, Switzerland) — Davidoff tobacco masters have created these very special Limited Edition “Club House” Toro Cigars with moments of shared pleasure in mind. The connoisseur’s choice, wherever he or she is relaxing, particularly enjoying the fairways on a golf course.
Creation of the Davidoff Masters Edition 2013 “Club House” Toro
For this cigar, the Davidoff Master Blenders decided to play the long game, taking adventurous, sometimes risky, shots. They mixed rare and specially matured tobaccos, focusing on delivering delightful aromas rather than pure strength.
The majestic Gran Toro format allows the aficionado to enjoy the cigar’s intensive but balanced and nuanced taste over its entire length: the exceptional Yamasá wrapper, Mejorado filler and Ecuadorian binder develop mildly peppery and creamy notes, followed by elegant hints of chocolate, caramel and coffee.
Finally, displaying a playful elegance, both the cigar box, which is finished in high gloss white, and the second band carry a golf ball pattern.
The new Davidoff Masters Edition Club House Toro is the ultimate way to fill your time beautifully on a golf course with your friends.
This exclusive edition is limited to 7’000 boxes worldwide and the Davidoff Masters Edition 2013 “Club House” Toro can certainly be described as a collector’s item. As we all know, the perfect round of golf depends upon the choice or club and cigar.
This Limited Edition will be available from the end of May onwards in Appointed Merchants across the US.
Price: $21.90 (each)
Price: $219.00 (box of 10)
Format: Gran Toro
Length: 15.9 cm, 6 ¼”
Ring gauge: 2.1 cm, 52 RG
Wrapper: Yamasá- Marron Claro (matured for 3 years)
Binder: Ecuador
Filler: Piloto Viso, San Vicente Mejorado Seco, Piloto Mejorado Seco, San Vicente Mejorado Viso, Vicente Mejorado Viso
Effective use of social media platforms like Instagram can entice hundreds and even thousands of potential customers to your product for a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing strategies.
In the four years I’ve been actively involved in the New York City cigar community, I’ve become acquainted with the whole gambit of cigar companies that make up what we bloggers like to call the “industry.” I’ve helped to market or promote companies like the small local brick and mortar in Brooklyn, to the new boutique brand in Arizona, and on up to legendary industry leaders like Nat Sherman. My team has hosted or sponsored over 60 events in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and NJ. I’ve also spent a lot of time marketing my own organization, FineTobaccoNYC, which after starting in 2010 as a wordpress blog has become a review website, cigar club with over 700 members, and a luxury consulting company.
You can only meet your customers where they are, and they are on social media.
Central to all of my efforts has been the utilization of social media. I’ve sold a lot of cigars on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, for myself and on behalf of a number of companies. In my work, I’ve noticed that many cigar company owners either a) don’t maintain a social media presence, b) don’t use social media in a way that effectively drives sales, and/or c) don’t know how to measure the effectiveness of social media efforts.
This series of posts, “Social Media for Cigar Companies,” is intended to help cigar shops, brands, and other industry players to market their brand more effectively. If you are a cigar company owner, or just a small business owner referred here from Google, read on and learn how to make money using social media.
Let’s start with why you need to be utilizing social media.Consider these six reasons:
1. Your customers are already using social media
According to the Experian 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report, a whopping 91% of adults have a social media presence. Cigar smokers are no exception. The hashtag #cigar on Instagram, for example, has over 300,000 photos and is growing more rapidly every day. You can only meet your customers where they are, and they are on social media. You might be able to count on the older generation calling you on the phone, but you can’t count on that with the younger crowd that will soon make up your customer base.
2. Your competitors are, or will, use social media
Social media as we know it now is less than a decade old. This presents an incredible opportunity for companies with foresight to take an early lead in marketing to the next generation of cigar smokers. It also means that this is your market to lose if you don’t make a wise investment in building a strong presence on social media.
3. Social Media is perfectly suited for luxury market companies
Luxury marketing is about narrative. People don’t just buy your product—they buy your story, your vision of life. This of course means that you must have a story to tell. But just as important, you must be able to present that story in a compelling way.
“92% of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of advertising.”
Social media is key to this. An Abrams Research study on social media marketing for luxury companies put it this way:
“The luxury market is ideally situated to thrive on social media. Along with deeper pockets, a keen interest in staying up to date on the latest consumer product goods, and an appetite for luxury products and lifestyle markers that’s growing all the time, its customers – the affluent – spend more time online than the general population.”
4. Social media is a leading source of customer referral
The 2012 Nielsen Report on “Global Trust in Advertising and Brand Messages” found that trust in traditional forms of advertising (television, magazine, banner ads, etc) is in rapid decline. The marketplace is simply too saturated with ads, and as a result consumers have lost faith in those ads.
At the same time, 92% of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as recommendations from friends and family above allother forms of advertising. Translation: the $4000 you just spent placing that magazine ad could have been two, three, or four times as effective in social media. Why? Because social media is all about referrals. When Bob sees that Jim liked your company’s Facebook page, he is more likely to connect with your company and purchase your product than if you shouted at him to buy your product from a slick looking banner ad.
5. Social media builds invaluable business relationships
Roughly 90% of the valuable relationships I have in the industry started out as friendly conversations on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Why such a lopsided number? The power of these networks is that the social barriers between users are almost entirely non-existent. This allows for informal, totally off the cuff conversations that can serve as introductions to valuable business relationships.
6. Your business can survive without it. But why just survive?
As more of life takes place in online venues, and as social media becomes more deeply embedded in our lives, more of our relationships will start and grow online. At some point, social media relationship building will be a given. This is a big opportunity for those who see the tide shifting and act, and a liability for those who don’t.
In our next segment, we’ll look at the basic platforms you must have a presence on and discuss how each of them allows you to broadcast to, interact with, and entice your audience.
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Michael Herklots of Nat Sherman Cigars, the iconic New York City tobacconist, announced today via Facebook the release of the Nat Sherman 1930, which will feature both Dominican and Nicaraguan tobaccos.
The Facebook announcement is below:
Herklots posted:
As Cigar Aficionado has exclusively reported: We are pleased to announce the release of The Nat Sherman 1930. Handmade by MATASA in Santiago, Dominican Republic, the line is offered in five sizes – Corona (5.5” x 42), Corona Grande (6” x 46), Rothschild (4.5” x 52), Gran Robusto (5.25” x 54) and Inmenso (7” x 56). Packed in boxes of 24 cigars, the Nat Sherman 1930 ranges in price from $8.75 – $12.00 per cigar, before applicable taxes. The cigars combine aged filler tobaccos from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, have a Dominican binder, and are finished with a Dominican-grown wrapper.
“The Nat Sherman 1930 Collection pays homage to the year the brand was founded, builds upon our long established tradition of innovation, and follows the success of our award-winning Timeless collection, released in February, 2012,” said Nat Sherman Executive Vice President William Sherman.
Executive Director of Retail and Brand Development Michael Herklots adds, “While there is no shortage of great cigars in the world today, there is a strong and growing demand for distinctive cigars that offer an incomparable balance of strength, flavor and aroma. The Nat Sherman 1930 is a rich cigar, with deep and complex flavors, yet offers a brightness and overall balance that contributes to a truly memorable experience.”
The 1930 Collection will be available in June. Visit our store locator to find an authorized Nat Sherman Tobacconist Near you. Which one do you plan to try first?
Alan Winchester, Master Distiller of The Glenlivet led the inaugural tasting of a new mystery expression, The Glenlivet Alpha at a media launch event held at the Whisky Shop in Piccadilly on 8th May.
Chivas Brothers CEO, Christian Porta, attended the event to support the launch of the new expression, which is limited to 3350 bottles.
Guests were also invited to try a range of sensory challenges launched by the Glenlivet in collaboration with Greyworld to help whisky enthusiasts master their senses to unlock the secrets of The Glenlivet Alpha. The sensory challenges are hosted on The GlenlivetFacebook page and http://www.theglenlivet.com/.
Alan Winchester (pictured above leading the tasting) will reveal the tasting notes and cask information for the mystery expression in a video broadcast on 6th June at 12:30pm. To watch the reveal live, visit The Glenlivet’s Facebook page.
Notes
Follow The Glenlivet on Twitter via the handle @The_Glenlivet and stream the campaign through #alpha
The Glenlivet is the No. 2 single malt Scotch whisky in the world. Crafted in the remote Livet Valley since 1824, it is the only whisky with the unchallengeable right to be called The Glenlivet.
Chivas Brothers is the Scotch whisky and premium gin business of Pernod Ricard – the world’s co-leader in wine and spirits. Chivas Brothers is the global leader in luxury Scotch whisky and premium gin. Its portfolio includes Chivas Regal, Ballantine’s, Beefeater Gin, The Glenlivet, Royal Salute, Aberlour, Plymouth Gin, Longmorn, Scapa, 100 Pipers, Clan Campbell, Something Special and Passport.
May 15, 2013 (Richmond, Va.) — La Gloria Cubana® is making a bold departure from its Dominican roots with the launch of two new Nicaraguan collections, the first-ever La Glorias to have Nicaragua as the country of origin. Both expressions will mark the expansion of the top-selling Serie R line which started the large ring, full flavor craze back in 1999.
According to Michael Giannini, General Cigar’s director of innovation, “When Serie R debuted, we established a market for bold cigars, and inspired other manufacturers to follow suit. We’re shaking things up again, by further expanding the size and flavor spectrum of our cigars with two unique and different full-flavored Nicaraguan blends, each in ultra-large ring gauges. Both new collections are trend setters in the making.”
The first of the two new Nicaraguan collections is a puro called Serie R Black. The blend features viso leaves from Jalapa and Esteli, and a Jalapa viso binder. The use of Jalapa viso as a binder and in the blend speaks to the spectacular characteristics of this tobacco, which was cultivated by a small, independent grower named Pedro Joaquin Guardian. It was Pedro who took a bold step by raising the tobacco on several small, unconnected plots on the craggy Jalapa mountainside. The blend is punctuated with an audacious Jalapa ligero wrapper. Harvested from the 2009 crop, this flavorful tobacco was fermented for an entire year, and aged for two and a half years.
Serie R Black debuts with a trio of brawny frontmarks, each in 18-count boxes. This includes: No 58 (6.87” x 58, SRP $6.99); No 60 (6” x 60, SRP $7.24) and No 64 (6.25” x 64, SRP $7.49). This collection will only be available for purchase through Internet/catalog retailers.
Initial details about the second Serie R offering will be released in June, with a full reveal in July at the IPCPR trade show in Las Vegas. This new line will be a brick and mortar exclusive.
Giannini noted, “What’s also significant about both new blends is that they have the full flavor that’s characteristic of Nicaraguan tobacco, but they’re not about power. They are meant to deliver the smoking experience of a well-aged, refined and balanced Nicaraguan smoke, and we believe we’re delivering that in spades.”
