Things I Will Do When Dunhill Tobaccos End
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Hmmm, I was told by the guy from Music City, the only Dunhill wholesaler at the time, that Dunhill the company and the pipe company were no longer connected. He eventually dropped the White Spots like a hot potato. Sure, there could be any number of misunderstandings in that conversation, but I am pretty certain that he told me that the reason they (the pipes) had to be re-branded was because they were no longer connected to Dunhill the main company.
That's correct.
Hold on, let me look at this long list of mergers and remergers and shotgun mergers and I Am My Own GrandPa mergers and see if I can possibly tell you who might own the pipe works.
Let's see...well this info is about a decade old, so Marvin the Martian could own Dunhill by now...BAT owns the rights to the tobacco products...OK... so the company was renamed from Alfred Dunhill Pipes Ltd to Alfred Dunhill Manufacturing Ltd in 2003 because they no longer wanted the name Dunhill associated with pipes...and that the factory is a separate company from the other Dunhill companies, though it is owned by Richmont, which also has interests in Rothmans, and BAT. Who is Richmont? They're the company formed out of Rothman's, who merged with Dunhill at some point. Then Rothman's creates Richmont, who create Rothmans, who...jeez this is such a series of restructurings and other crap...
Bottom line is that the pipe business isn't connected to the other businesses. The tobacco business isn't connected to the luxury goods or pipe businesses. Their connection is tenuous, and only exists through the various holding companies, etc.
This sounds about right. Dunhill pipes were made by Dunhill and whoever they sub-contracted to throughout their history.
And, if memory serves me, it may not, there is an heir of Alfred's connected to the "White Spot" operation. He doesn't own the commercial rights to his name though.
Something that confuses me about this conversation: the White Spot pipes are sold in the main Dunhill shop in London, the same shop that sells the leather goods etc. In short, although they are White Spot, they ARE being sold in Dunhill's premises. That doesn't sound to me as though there is no connection. Tobacco, on the other hand, is sold at another shop 100 yards away.
Mike
Mike
Alfred Dunhill of London, Inc.still owns and controls both The White Spot and Dunhill name as it applies to pipes. They may license that to another company that makes and/or distributes the pipes, but they don't own the rights to use those names in the U.S.A. in conjunction with the pipes.
That was true until earlier this year. General still makes and distributes Dunhill cigars, but Lane Limited now handles the pipe tobacco distribution.
Russ
Hmmmm... I asked Music City Marketing if I could post the news on a public forum, he told me specifically that the change in names on the pipes would be all the world would need to prove it. At the time, they were the only certified Dunhill reps in the US. I had made a post about it. Does Smokingpipes now rep for Dunhill? Or who is their US rep now? Woods, I would usually take your word on such matters, but eye contact and the Music City credibility still has me on the other side of the fence on that issue. I'd rather be set straight by someone with the proper credentials... not that I don't dearly love you Woods. You know that though. I feel it. :
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The pipe making concern and the stores are not the same company. They are tenuously connected by the umbrella companies which own them. These umbrella companies are different companies, but they all hold stock in each other.
Well, here are a few things to ponder. The Dunhill branded pipe tobaccos were not selling that well in the US, according to BAT. So how to try to generate renewed interest? "Resurrect" some brands to which they already own the rights to the names and the artwork. This decision could well have preceded the FDA announcement last Spring, could have preceded new, more stringent laws in the UK and the EU. The new brands get released and they don't sell well enough to thrill the boardroom. Time to move on.
As for "resurrecting", not every "resurrected" blend is actually a revival of an old blend. Sometimes it's just taking an existing blend, and putting it in a new tin. So these newly revived "Dunhill" blends could have been nothing more than tin art and some ad copy, a reasonably low risk foray into breathing new interest in a failing marque and it didn't succeed. If a product isn't making sufficient profit it gets the hook.
Corporations change direction all the time. In the mid 1990's, Warner Bros decided to return to the animated feature business after seeing the eye popping profits Disney was making. They built a lavish 50,000 square foot facility with state of the art technology in Sherman Oaks, and optioned another 50,000 square feet which they built out for extra television production space in the same building.
Unfortunately, they picked a number of very inept people to run the feature division and they lost enormous amounts of money on the enterprise. The feature division closed shop. Then Warners managed to lose other top creatives and the other animation divisions began to fail. A facility intended to house a thousand working artists was down to a handful before Warners pulled the plug on their Sherman Oaks facility and move the survivors to a bunch of trailers on the Ranch property. For a while, Warner animation was completely off the air.
Now animation is booming again and Warners has leased office space, but they're not building any more palaces. Lesson learned.
You can have a project on track for years before it becomes clear that it isn't going to succeed.
Well put, Jesse.
In fact, most if not all of the project cost fell on STG, not Dunhill/BAT. If BAT was just licensing the marks, then it was up to STG to do the rest of the work and shoulder the risk and expenses of bringing the new products to market.
In fact, most if not all of the project cost fell on STG, not Dunhill/BAT. If BAT was just licensing the marks, then it was up to STG to do the rest of the work and shoulder the risk and expenses of bringing the new products to market.
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