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TOBACCO OUTLET BUSINESS
MAY/JUNE 2012
Highlights from the
PROCIGAR FESTIVAL
2012
Name:
Michael Giannini
Title/Company:
DirectorofMarketing,
LaGloriaCubana
About him:
Born and raised in
Philadelphia, Giannini took a
circuitous route to reach a career
in the cigar business. In his early
20s, he was juggling a job as a chef
and working toward his Ph.D. in
psychology. “Since I was an academic,
I thought I should start smoking
a pipe,” he recounts. “So I started
going to a little tobacco shop in the
mall.” Impressed by both Giannini’s
interest and his style—he always
came to the mall well-dressed—the
owner of the shop offered him a job.
The job led to an offer to partner
in a new store and Giannini found
his calling. “Basically I got into
the business right out of college in
1983,” he says. “I knew I had found
my true passion.”
Giannini went on to become a
sales representative and from there
worked with Ernesto Perez-Carrillo
to promote La Gloria Cubana. For
the last decade he has spearheaded
the marketing of respected brands,
including La Gloria Cubana, Serie R,
El Rico Habano and, more recently,
the La Gloria Cubana Artesanos
series. “I was the guy working behind
the scenes with Ernesto, creating a
lot of packaging and blends, getting
to see this world, which I just love,”
he recounts. “So when he left three
years ago, I became the guy in charge
of the brand.”
Giannini is now charged with
working with General Cigar
colleagues—including
Benji
Menendez and Jhonys Diaz,
Francisco Rodriguez, Yuri Guillen
and Eduardo Deprat in the DR, and
Edwin Guevara and Agustin Garcia
in Honduras to bring innovation to
the General Cigar portfolio.
On the future:
“When we merged
with General Cigar we saw our
business double in two years,” says
Giannini. “With access to the
company’s expertise and by having a
dedicated sales force, I was able to
focus on marketing.That was a huge
opportunity.” In exchange, however,
he felt the brand lost some of the
advantages of a small company—
such as the ability to move quickly
on innovation. Now Giannini plans
to harness the potential of both
worlds. “Over the last four years
under Dan Carr’s leadership we
have been getting back to where we
were years ago, being able to use our
resources to do really cool stuff,” he
says. “For my team and me to be able
to do what we did with El Perrito, it
would have taken a lot longer before.
And now under this innovation
platform you will see new stuff that
will blow people away…not only
from the El Credito brands but from
across the General Cigar portfolio.”
On
market
opportunities:
“For Gloria Cubana, it is about
innovation, that is how I look at
this brand—first and foremost, it’s
about doing cool stuff that as a cigar
smoker, my friends and I would
want,” he says. “General Cigar is
about the people and the cigars—
talented people creating unique
products. That’s what cigar lovers
will see from us more and more in
the future…bringing together our
talent and our resources to bring
exciting new products and packaging
to the market.”
On what’s new:
Together, Giannini
and his “TeamGloria”—Yuri Guillen
and “Pope” Leo Peraza among
them—have introduced a number
of cigars, including Artesanos de
Tabaqueros, which combines two
blends and two wrappers for a depth
of flavor, and Artesanos de Obelisco,
a blend of Dominican and double
Nicaraguan ligero that features a
distinctive tapered tip.There’s also El
Perrito, a full-flavor cigar that takes
45 minutes to smoke (see above),
and “Rabito de Cochino, our version
of a Lancero, and Artesanos Retro
Especiale, Honduran Connecticut
wrapper that lets you taste the fillers
and binders,” says Giannini. “With
the Retro, we wanted a cigar where
70 percent of the flavor comes from
the filler and just 30 percent from
the wrapper. It took two years and
24 different wrappers to make this
happen, but we did it.”
On overall outlook:
“We are looking
to support this industry and bring
excitement to the category...With so
many cigars available, the consumer
is excited about unique things. If it
doesn’t have that ‘wow’ factor, what’s
the point? Doing the cool stuff really
gives us the opportunity to expand
this category—and that’s what
makes my job so much fun.”
La Gloria Cubano:
A Focus on Innovation