How We Sold Whiskey in the Land of Rum: A Case Study at Punta Cana Duty-Free

In the Dominican Republic, no one buys whiskey. Tourists come for rum, and locals drink it with milk. I’ll tell you how we changed the usual scenario and convinced both locals and tourists to take bourbon from Punta Cana airport instead of the traditional drink.

My name is Kseniia Petrina, I am a marketer and CEO of Holy Marketing agency. For over 12 years, I’ve been helping international brands enter markets in Latin America and the USA — adapting marketing strategies to local specifics, and organizing collaborations with global brands and celebrities.

In 2016, we worked with an American bourbon brand, one of the most recognizable in the world. The brand decided to launch sales at the duty-free shop of the private Punta Cana airport. It seemed like a win-win plan: international status, high tourist traffic, whiskey’s overall popularity. But there were no sales.

The duty-free audience is complex: Europeans, tourists from the USA and Canada, representatives from LATAM, and residents of the Dominican Republic all departed from Punta Cana airport — each group with their own goals and cultural specifics. In the Dominican Republic, as in Latin America generally, consumers are strongly tied to local brands, and for tourists, bringing whiskey from the Dominican Republic seemed illogical. Even in duty-free, a large share of sales was rum.

Sell whiskey where it won’t be bought

It was clear that clashing with rum would be a losing battle. In a place where bourbon isn’t an obvious choice, differentiating from competitors through outdoor advertising was pointless.

In Latin America, emotional offline marketing plays a much larger role than, for example, in the USA. Here, a brand’s history, its connection to culture and traditions, are important. Unlike the American market, where the "product + price + convenience of purchase" approach dominates, success in LATAM is built on three components:

• engagement — the buyer becomes part of the interaction with the product, not just an observer;
• live communication — dialogue with the client is more important than classic advertising;
• impressions — emotions from interacting with the brand influence the purchase decision.

We bet on behavioral economics: if you can’t just "force" tourists to buy bourbon, you can create conditions under which they themselves will want to. We developed a strategy whose key elements were product interaction and brand storytelling.

How we engaged passengers

To attract attention, we set up a stand in the shape of a whiskey barrel, stylized in the brand’s spirit. We considered that people in airports often make impulse purchases, especially before departure. Therefore, for the product to sell and not just draw attention, we made tasting the main engagement point. To create the feeling of a unique "here and now" offer, we came up with offers for each passenger.

Before launching the campaign, we found out that a special license is required for alcohol tasting in the Dominican Republic. We had to quickly arrange it with the duty-free administration.

In Latin America, whiskey is perceived as a status drink, but many consider it difficult to consume. We wrote a tasting script for the managers — according to which the salesperson explained how to properly drink whiskey and what to pair it with, to remove this barrier.

The main trick was to involve passengers in the discussion: "Do you feel the difference between the varieties?", "What do you like about this whiskey?". The questions were formulated so that it would be easier for the person to answer positively. Visitors themselves articulated the taste characteristics of the drink, convincing themselves of its positive attributes.

People trust their own opinion more than advertising claims. Give them the opportunity to verbally formulate arguments in favor of a product — and they will convince themselves to buy it.

One offer for different target audiences

It was impossible to come up with a universal offer for all groups at once. The airport has a broad target audience: adult men and women with different preferences and travel purposes. We focused on simple incentives that would make anyone pay: freebies and savings.

We had to do a lot of "homework": our team pre-studied the rules of all airlines departing from the terminal where the stand was located. We considered the rules for importing alcohol into different countries: what, how much, and in what form could be transported.

Into the manager’s script, in addition to questions about the taste qualities of whiskey, we included a personal promotional offer — it depended on the country the buyer was flying to and the number of bottles of strong alcohol that could be imported there at once. As soon as interest in the drink intensified, the salesperson would look at the passenger’s boarding pass and say:

“Are you flying to Canada? We have a promotion: three bottles for the price of two — exactly how much you can import duty-free.”

This made the purchase seem less impulsive and strange, and more rational and logical.

People bought experiences, not whiskey

We focused not only on buyers but also on motivating duty-free staff: the more passengers they brought to the tasting, the higher their bonus. In total, one person sold 35–40 liters of whiskey per day. The goal was to reach 1/4 of the liters of rum sold at the airport. Ultimately, we sold out the entire whiskey stock in a month — faster than the new shipment arrived.

Why did the strategy work? Because people don’t just buy a product — they buy an experience, emotions, and a story. We didn’t convince them to buy bourbon. We created a situation where they themselves wanted to.