26
TOBACCO OUTLET BUSINESS
MAY/JUNE 2013
Titletown Tobacco in Green Bay, Wisconsin took a shot at hosting a one-of-a-kind
boutique cigar event and won exclusive excitement for its customers.
A
lounge with regular cigar events
is typically one that draws in
satisfied customers. But what
does it take to go that extra mile with
in-store event activity and drum up
exclusive excitement?
For Titletown Tobacco in Green Bay,
Wisconsin, it took a good relationship
with a boutique cigar supplier and the
confidence to simply ask for something
special. In April, the three-and-a-half-
year-old cigar retailer/lounge hosted a
cigar event with Miami, Florida-based
Canimao Cigars, debuting the boutique
cigar player’s newest cigar, Coloquiales.
Coloquiales is described as a 6.5x56
cigar with an Ecuador Habano binder
and wrapper.The filler is all-Nicaraguan
and the overall profile is full-bodied.
“We’ve had Canimao cigars, one of
my personal favorites, since we opened,”
Mike Gehm, one of four part-owners of
Titletown Tobacco, tells
Tobacco Outlet
Business
. “We order regularly from the
company sales rep, Todd Maietta, and in
one of our conversations,he mentioned that
the new brand was coming out so I simply
asked him,‘What do we have to do to get it
up here?’—I just put it out there that we’d
love to do an event to debut it.”
And, according to Gehm, that’s all it
took; the suggestion clicked, andMaietta
agreed to give the northern Wisconsin
shop the product-unveiling honor,
originally slated for February, but moved
to late April (right at press time) because
the Canimao boxes weren’t ready.
“We’ve done a bunch of successful
events, but this is a really big deal to have
a cigar released at our shop,”Gehm says.
“It’s one of our biggest events thus far.”
Boutique brands have been the
primary focus of Titletown Tobacco
since the beginning. “We’re not big on
Macanudos or Arturo Fuentes—we have
a few for the beginning smokers—those
are all they know,” says Gehm. “But we
focus on the smaller-name brands that
customers can’t find online. We avoid
those big names that sometimes drop
prices for online retailers and screw over
brick and mortar shops.”
He adds that “everyone smokes a
Macanudo or Fuente—that’s how
Going for the
“Big Deal” Event
By Renee M. Covino
