Nimbility: local expertise can drive exports for brands in Asia

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With a growing middle class and increasing appreciation for premium drinks, the Asia-Pacific region continues to present strong opportunities for wines and spirits brands. This expanding market, however, remains a complex one and can be hard to navigate and requires strategic partnerships and a deep understanding of the local market to get right. Which is where Nimbility, a specialist market builder for drinks companies across the region, hopes it can offer a targeted route to market and has worked with a number of brands and producers including Maison Mirabeau, Sagamore Spirits, Rathfinny Estate, Journey’s End, Klein Constantia, Trinity Hill and Bertinga. Here Nimbility’s founding partner, Francesca Martin, explains how it can help wine producers find the right import and distribution partners in the APAC region.

Nimbility says its local expertise and network of contacts across Asia can help drinks brands make big steps in the region.

Nimbility describes itself as a ‘market builder’. Can you explain what this entails and how Nimbility helps brands to ‘build markets’?

We founded Nimbility back in 2018 with the intention of building markets for our clients in Asia-Pacific and to our mind this focuses around three core pillars. The first, is route-to-market. Without a route-to-market you can’t move on effectively to the second pillar which is brand building.

Getting products imported and distributed is a fundamental step to initiate any market building strategy. We have a team of 14 people, over half of whom are travelling around the region on any given day to meet with importers and secure high quality, long-term, sustainable partnerships for our clients.

Ian Ford of Nimbility leads a debate with Concha y Toro’s and of Sarment on future of Chinese wine market at Vinexpo in Shanghai

Once route-to-market has been secured, brand building begins. Many suppliers leave this vitally important pillar to their importers. In Nimbility’s case, we work with our clients and customers, not only to develop the brand building strategy required for each market, but also helping them to implement it. This gives both the importer and the brand the vital support and expertise they require to build consumer franchise successfully.

The third pillar is insight and intelligence. Wherever possible we use statistics and facts to build our strategies. Our on-the-ground presence in the region and regular meetings with many of the top importers, distributors, retailers, bars, hotels and restaurants gives us unique insights into the trends and movements of the markets. The three pillars combined are how we build markets for our clients.

What are some of the pitfalls of working in Asia Pacific and what does Nimbility offer to brands that they can’t do themselves?

There are numerous pitfalls but by far the biggest we see is brands going with the wrong partners, often in an opportunistic fashion where proper due diligence hasn’t been carried out.

Nimbility offers expertise. Our team has a strong history working in the region, both directly for brands as well as for importers so we understand the nuanced and intricate requirements of all parties. We know most of the top importers in the region and are quickly able to qualify genuine opportunities.

Being on the ground to be able to host events and brand launches is a key part of what Nimbility does

Our network and relationships are also a huge part of our offering. This has been built over decades and gives our clients access they might otherwise lack. Good examples of this would be Rathfinny recently signing with ASC Fine Wines in China and with Fine Vintage in Hong Kong. Without our intricate knowledge of who these importers are, how they work and what they might be looking for, followed by our introduction, pitching and close out, it’s doubtful these distribution agreements would have come to fruition.

We find that we are most successful with brands who understand the long-term potential of APAC and know that finding ‘an’ importer shouldn’t be too challenging but finding the ‘right’ one takes time.

Having our team on the ground is another key asset. Rathfinny, for example, recently signed an agreement with Vin Passion, an on-trade specialist and one of the leading suppliers of grower Champagne in Japan. Nimbility was able to offer full support building this relationship in person in Japan and will continue to support brand building and activation throughout the year, including the planning and co-ordination of regional brand owner visits.

Being on the same timeline as importers is also a huge asset in terms of responsiveness, in addition to local language, cultural skills and understanding of consumer behaviour in many of the key markets in which we work. Our team provides full brand and export management services to our clients for APAC, so we essentially become an extension of our clients’ export and marketing capability for the region – a team of experts ready to build bespoke strategy and facilitate execution. We provide the infrastructure that otherwise brands would have to build themselves, saving both time and recourse as well as offering a lower degree of risk.

True brand building requires investment beyond trade marketing. It involves investment into the brand itself to build genuine consumer franchise. The more expertise and control you have over planning, budgeting, and execution of brand strategy, and the closer you can be to the markets with a team on the ground managing this work, the more effective you can be to truly build brand equity.

Can you give a few case studies of distribution and brand building strategies and key activations you have developed for different brands?

Stephen and Jeany Cronk have been working with Nimbility to promote Maison Mirabeau across South East Asia

Maison Mirabeau is a good example of where we have secured a solid distribution network across multiple markets across APAC and are now managing 11 importer relationships for the brand across the region. We have targeted certain SKUs into online platforms, such as Vinehoo in China, and the Mirabeau Dry Rosé Gin to spirits specialists like The First Pour in Singapore and CDA in Malaysia.

In terms of activation, we have strategised and executed brand launch events, live-streaming sales, designed and produced POSM, hosted trainings, tastings and events, designed digital content and assets, created flagship account programs and coordinated media interviews, to name a few!

We started working with Sagamore Spirits a year ago with two fold brief of fine-tuning distribution in key markets and building visibility and reputation for the brand. In Korea, in collaboration with their import partner DnP Sprits Inc., we launched the Sagamore Cocktail Derby. This was a cocktail competition with top bartenders to launch Sagamore in Seoul. The competition consisted of two rounds, more than 40 applicants and eight finalists from some of the best bars in Seoul. We had great pick up by local media coverage which really helped to further build visibility and notoriety of the brand with a combined effect of leading to key listings in places such as Zest, #5 on Asia’s Top 50 Bars 2023.

Sagamore Spirits has been working with Nimbility to get distribution for its premium spirits range

Another good case study is Bertinga who now has representation in Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Thailand, with Korea soon to launch. Here we focused activation around private client events such fine wine dinners with exclusive offers on back vintage mixed cases and Bertinga’s estate-grown Extra Virgin Olive Oil used for gifting. In Singapore we hosted an intimate dinner with some of the city’s top sommeliers with an eye to building visibility through the on-trade, and in China we have focused on mixed case and large format offers to Italian wine lovers to drive sales.

It was your fifth anniversary of the business last year – how do you see the next five years shaping up?

We took on a few new brands towards the end of last year and still have a few gaps on our portfolio that we’d like to fill, mainly from France, Italy and Spain, as well as spirits. We will also be aiming to continue to grow our team and provide greater access across all the major markets in APAC. We’d like to have people permanently on the ground in Japan and Australia, for example, within the next five years as there are big opportunities here that are worth investing in.

Building out regional business strategy for larger beverage companies is an area of expertise for us and certainly an area we’ll be looking to grow, along with creative brand strategy and activation.