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58
TOBACCO OUTLET BUSINESS
JULY/AUGUST 2012
luck involved—although you won’t hear
that from him. In 1998, he was offered
the Las Vegas’s McCarran International
Airport’s tobacco concession—which at
the time consisted of a cart in the open
area known as the esplanade.The airport
management was so pleased with the
revenues from its lease-plus-percentage-
of-sales arrangement that six years later
they offered Havana Honeys the chance
to build a kiosk.
To Gold, it was a fabulous opportunity.
“The Las Vegas airport is the No. 1
location in the world for brand building,”
he asserts. “Everyone comes to Las Vegas
sooner or later, and everyone in every
part of the world you can think of has
heard of Las Vegas. They may not have
heard of Nevada but they’ve heard of
Las Vegas. It’s magic.” In addition to
the airport advantage, Gold credits
Cynthia Ellis, who is now president of
Bahama Mamas, for the brand’s success.
“She is unbelievable,” he says. “She runs
everything. All I do is hang around.”
By 2007, the Havana Honeys brand
had gained enough of a following to
attract the acquisitive eye of Swedish
Match’s General Cigar. “They were very
gracious—treated me very well,” says
Gold, who sold the Havana Honeys
brand to Swedish Match in 2008, but
retained the airport concession.
But Joe Gold had found his calling,
and by 2010 he was back in the brand
building business with the launch of
Bahama Mamas Cigars and the all-female
“Mamas” sales team. “We had our factory
in the Dominican Republic, we knew the
business model and we had stores and
Bahama Mamas’ standup
case displays all nine of the
brand’s flavors.
Joe Gold with
Scott Kichlime, head
of operations at
Las Vegas McCarran
International Airport
with the Bahama Mamas.
Bahama Mama
Tesa Wilbert