<\/p>\n
This is part two of our interview with Amanda Micallef, Vice President of Marketing at Micallef Cigars<\/a><\/strong>. If you haven\u2019t had a chance to read the first installment, you can check that out here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SMOKE INN:<\/strong>\u00a0 How the increase in women cigar smokers influenced Micallef as a brand?<\/p>\n MICALLEF:<\/strong> \u00a0 That\u2019s also a great question. I don’t know that I’d say the increase in women cigar smokers has influenced Micallef so much as the change in how women approach all sorts of luxury goods has had some effect. It wasn\u2019t that long ago that people might be surprised to see a woman order bourbon neat or a Scotch whisky. But that has changed even over the last 5-10 years. When Dan [Micallef President, Dan Thompson] and I both came on in official capacities about 3 years ago one of the things we did was to start drilling down on that.<\/p>\n The fact is that women have changed the way we think about what we want access to. It didn\u2019t happen overnight, of course. This has been a long time coming. More and more women are at C-level or higher positions. More women control their budget at the household level than ever before. More women are getting advanced college degrees than every before.<\/p>\n So, women\u2019s access to capital to spend on these things has changed. So has our desire to try things that maybe previously seemed to be solely for men. In part, because we\u2019re doing the jobs mostly only men did 30 years ago. I think cigars are really the last frontier. It\u2019s really one of the very last things that\u2019s considered a \u201cguy thing\u201d or \u201cfor the boys\u201d. I don\u2019t think anyone is surprised by a woman CEO anymore or a woman ordering a bourbon neat. But cigars are still somewhat uncharted territory for us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SMOKE INN:\u00a0<\/strong> So, women partaking of these things is not so much of a novelty anymore.<\/p>\n MICALLEF:\u00a0<\/strong> Right. We\u2019ve definitely made progress. There\u2019s always going to be work to be done, but there\u2019s been a clear, clear shift in the last decade and I think cigars are on the tail end of that. But women are changing the way they think about them. So that affects who we think of as a consumer. So we no longer think about consumers only as men. We think about them as men and women. We work to create cigars that will hopefully appeal to men and women.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SMOKE INN:<\/strong>\u00a0 That seems to make more sense than just sort of targeting one gender or the other. It\u2019s just remembering that you\u2019re targeting people who might be interested in cigars and just not excluding women in that assessment.<\/p>\n MICALLEF:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 Precisely<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SMOKE INN:\u00a0<\/strong> Do you think that the increase in women who are cigar smokers has affected the industry as a whole?<\/p>\n MICALLEF:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 I do. Even in the 3 years or so that I\u2019ve been actively involved I\u2019ve seen more and more brick-and-mortar shops becoming aware of women coming in and purchasing for themselves and taking a personal interest in cigar smoking. We\u2019re making a concerted effort to be inclusive of women and make them part of the conversation.<\/p>\n When we started that a few years ago we found some people in the industry were very receptive and others were just sort of curious. But that\u2019s changed. More and more people are calling us to say, \u201cwe want to do an event that\u2019s really inclusive for women\u201d or perhaps they want to have an hour beforehand that\u2019s a \u201cCigar 101 for women\u201d.<\/p>\n That sort of thing is happening with so much more frequency than it was just 3 years ago. We\u2019re seeing it everywhere. More women are at events, more women participating in Facebook Groups<\/a><\/strong>, coming into the shops.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SMOKE INN:<\/strong>\u00a0 So, retailers are coming to Micallef for advice on marketing to women specifically?<\/p>\n MICALLEF:<\/strong>\u00a0 It\u2019s not so much that, as some others in the industry see what we\u2019re doing. We have a cigar that we release annually on International Women\u2019s Day. The Migdalia Special Edition<\/a><\/strong>. It\u2019s a cigar that was built for men and women, but we release it in celebration of strong women.<\/p>\n I also have a cigar journal<\/strong><\/a> that\u2019s written for both men and women, but it does take pains to point out women\u2019s involvement in the industry. I think these things are noticed by others in the industry, so if they want to do an event focused on women, then they\u2019ll call us or talk to our sales reps to see if we\u2019d like to do it with them. So, it\u2019s more collaborative.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SMOKE INN:\u00a0<\/strong> So, they\u2019re seeing that Micallef is savvy when it comes to women and you\u2019re not waiting to see what happen. You\u2019re making<\/em> things happen.<\/p>\n MICALLEF:<\/strong>\u00a0 We\u2019re hoping to be a big part of leading that conversation, yes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SMOKE INN:\u00a0<\/strong> Do you think the industry as a whole is doing a good job of catering to women smokers and innovating for them?<\/p>\n MICALLEF:<\/strong>\u00a0 I think it\u2019s improved a lot. I think initially a lot of the instinct was \u201clet\u2019s build something for women\u201d and that\u2019s a hard thing to do. Part of the appeal is that women are interested in this thing that wasn\u2019t really available to them. If you build something different and say \u201cthe regular cigar isn\u2019t for you, here\u2019s a special cigar\u201d then you risk missing the mark. I think the industry is getting away from the idea that it has to be a \u201cwomen\u2019s cigar\u201d. Instead, we make cigars for people who enjoy cigars, but we\u2019re recognizing that women are part of that audience now.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SMOKE INN:\u00a0<\/strong> Right, it could be seen as archaic or patronizing just making a \u201cwomen\u2019s cigar\u201d. It\u2019s like building a car just for women. It sounds like something out of the 1950s.<\/p>\n MICALLEF:\u00a0<\/strong> That doesn’t seem to be part of the conversation, we\u2019ve come a long way. It\u2019s more like, \u201cthis is something that women can enjoy too\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SMOKE INN:<\/strong>\u00a0 So, it\u2019s a lot more subtle. You\u2019re just noting that women are a part of your customer base and taking that into account when you\u2019re blending or designing a product?<\/p>\n MICALLEF:\u00a0 <\/strong>Yes, exactly. Right.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SMOKE INN:<\/strong> The Micallef Ambassadors program seems like one of the unique aspects of your brand. Can you tell us a little about it?<\/p>\n MICALLEF:<\/strong>\u00a0 Dan and I both had different business backgrounds, but we both had experience in building out community groups. We both believe very strongly in if you’re if you’re creating a brand for the long term you want to do it alongside the people that are going to be part of your customer base.<\/p>\n The best possible way to do that is to include them early and often. So, the idea of the ambassador really stems from a desire to have a constant open conversation. There are so many tools now, like social media, that make that so much easier than it used to be. I think we, by far benefit the most in that we have almost 10,000 members and about 5,000 are very active on Facebook. So, I have a 5,000-person board of directors and focus group that I can ask questions to anytime. We get so much information and feedback from them that really does shape the decisions that we make.<\/p>\n I can’t imagine what it would be like trying to make decisions in a vacuum, especially for consumer goods and we never have to because of the ambassadors. The ambassadors play a role in shaping our decisions and they are among the very first people we share news with. They usually know even before we drop a press release, so there\u2019s a lot of trust there. We want them to know. They\u2019ve invested a lot of themselves into our company and we want them to feel that connection and influence and the value they create for us, just as any stakeholder would. In addition to that, we try to create a lot of fun content and contests and things throughout the year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We didn\u2019t want to whittle away too much of this great conversation, so the remainder of this interview appears in Part 3 next week. You can buy the Micallef Migdalia Special Edition<\/strong> cigar referenced above here in our store<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n We hope you enjoyed this second segment of our conversation with Amanda Micallef. In Part Three, we talk about the Micallef Ambassadors program, cigar production and The Great Smoke. And\u2026as always, if you\u2019re local or happen to be visiting South Florida, be sure to reward yourself with a visit to one of the country\u2019s best cigar shops in person. We\u2019d love to see you.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Our South Florida Locations:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cigar Culture Interview #1: Amanda Micallef – Part 2 This is part two of our interview with Amanda Micallef, Vice President of Marketing at Micallef Cigars. If you haven\u2019t had a chance to read the first installment, you can check that out here. SMOKE INN:\u00a0 How the increase in women cigar smokers influenced …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[47,23,14,32,46],"yoast_head":"\nRead PART THREE here<\/a><\/h4>\n
Smoke Inn is Your Cigar Shop<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n