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Posted on – 09/28/2006

Smoker Friendly® International hosts success at it’s 2006 Tradeshow and Conference.

A smokey and well lubricated bar, card games, friendly women and men pretty well describes the Smoker Friendly cocktail party that took place this past September 25. For the clear eyed, and many silent sufferers, the next morning’s program succeeded in its goal to allow SF store owners and managers to “take home some actionable ideas”, in the words of Jim Dickens the moderator. The three- part program mixed prepared presentations, a panel discussion and a trade show.

Presentations

John Mayer of McLane Company, Steve Sandman of Altadis USA and Tom Briant of NATO talked about the state of the industry from their areas of expertise. A common theme of the first two presenters was that OTP represents a growth sector and that SF has a great opportunity to capture business from other retail channels such as C-Stores and drug stores. In both presentations, the growth of OTP and the advantage of friendly, knowledgeable staff were recurring themes. Tom Briant shared some tools for combating anti-tobacco legislation and for burnishing tobacco’s image.

John Meyer

McLane is the #1 distributor of tobacco products in North America. Meyer, who is the merchandising manager of the Tobacco Group, reported that premium cigarettes continue to take market share from 4th tier brands and that box sales are growing. The percentage of adults who smoke continues to decline, but population growth mitigates the loss to a degree. He urged everyone, “Don’t worry about things you can’t control.” Meyer was very excited about OTP due to its continued growth. Pouched smokeless and cigars specifically are growing on top of several years of consistent upward trends. He urged retailers to have an exit strategy for specific cigars because some brands will not move and retailers “can’t continue to add, add, add, you need to take something out”. He pointed out that that tobacco retailers have a marvelous opportunity in today’s ant-smoking environment because “smokers want to go someplace where they feel needed and don’t feel like a 2nd class citizen”.

Steve Sandman

Sandman gave a brief history of Altadis and explained that the boom introduced cigars to a wide audience and now that the dust has settled, “the premium cigar business has become a nice steady growing business”. Since many SF owners and managers have recently added premium cigars to their mix, he shared a 5-point sales strategy for selling premium cigars: quality, assortment, knowledge, environment, and confidence. He also shared a strategy to narrow the humidor to a few choices by asking the customer what strength he preferred, if the customer has any brand preference and what price range he is interested in. He urged the SF owners and managers to create a separate department for premium cigars so it becomes an in-store destination.

Tom Briant

Briant gave an update on NATO’s lobbying efforts and provided some scripted letters-to-the-editor and prepared editorials supporting freedom of choice.

This year’s Smoker Friendly Industry Panel was moderated by Jim Dickens of CSP Information Group and was composed of Dan Butler, President UST; Tom Arens, Director of Marketing, Republic Tobacco; Gary Poehlman, Sr. Director of Field sales, Swedish Match North America; John Mayer, Merchandising Manager Tobaco Grroup, McLane Co.; Patrick Vivalo Rocky Patel Cigars; Kent Zerangue, VP of Sales Western Region, PM USA.

The discussion was off the record. There were lively give and takes regarding FDA regulation, the future of snus in North America, how to sell RYO/MYO, what is happening in other retail channels that tobacco only retailers need to be aware of, and the continuing attraction and growth of OTP. Panelists made the point several times that a well informed clerk is critical and that the consumer wants to feel needed and service comes first, whereas price and promotion are last. The point was made that tobacco companies have even less credibility that congress members, so if anyone is going to challenge the junk science being foisted on the public, it cannot be them. Several SF audience members called for a mechanism for information flow between manufacturer and retailer, especially consumer concerns. PM has a yearly retailer forum and promised to include some SF managers or owners. The manufacturers on the panel agreed that where they can, they will present a common front, but that since their industry is so competitive, often they will be at loggerheads, making for a challenging environment regarding cooperation.

The trade show was crowded and several vendors said they did better with SF than at other venues. Everyone there was there to buy and they did.