How Jägerlabs De-risked the Jägermeister Orange Launch
Could Jägermeister Orange add sales rather than shift existing demand? GAZER ran 3 trials in 10 independent venues, proving portfolio incrementality and refining the serve strategy. A further trial in 54 venues across a managed pub group validated the playbook with fewer controls, giving the brand evidence for wider rollout.
The results
The results- Initial trial estate
- 10venuesIndependent free-trade venues tested product, serves and activation across 3 trials.
- Regional validation
- 54venuesA managed pub group trial assessed whether the playbook held its benchmarks with fewer controls.
- Total trial footprint
- 64venuesThe programme combined independent venue learning with validation across a regional estate.
- Client
- Jägermeister
- Project
- Jägerlabs - Jägermeister Orange launch trials
- Category
- Spirits
- Channel
- Independent On-Trade (UK)
- Service
- Strategy; Campaigns & Activations; GAZER Optics™
- Commercial objective
- Establish incrementality and de-risk launch investment
- Primary activity
- Product, serve, promotion and point-of-sale testing
- Audience
- Consumers / Venue teams / Operators
- Geography
- UK
- Measurement focus
- Incrementality, rate of sale, category share and execution compliance
Quick facts
Evidence of commercial potential and operational fit, before rollout.
Jägermeister needed to establish whether Orange would generate additional sales, which serves would deliver the strongest rate of sale and where the product would perform best. The team also needed to understand which point-of-sale materials supported growth. These decisions had practical implications: a serve had to appeal to consumers while remaining straightforward for venue teams to deliver. Before wider rollout, Jägermeister needed evidence of both commercial potential and operational fit.
Could Jägermeister Orange deliver incremental sales through a serve and activation approach that operators could replicate at scale?
The commercial question
Learn in independent venues before committing to rollout.
A network of independent venues offered the opportunity to learn before committing to wider rollout. Combining granular sales and category data with execution checks, customer intercepts and operator feedback would establish performance and practical delivery requirements. The resulting playbook could then be tested within a managed estate, with fewer control measures, to assess whether it could sustain the same performance benchmarks.
- Designed JägerlabsRecruited 10 independent free-trade venues for 3 trials, leading activation, staff engagement, analysis and recommendations.
- Connected sales and executionOptics™ combined EPOS, portfolio and category sales with pre-trial and same-period-last-year comparisons. Mystery shopping assessed compliance by serve; staff, customer, operator and sales-team feedback explained delivery.
- Refined the serve playbookTested serves, promotional packs and point of sale. The ice-cold shot remained the hero; Jägermeister Orange & lemonade was the strongest long drink. Spritz trials informed a simpler, commercially practical serve strategy.
- Validated at scaleTested the playbook in 54 venues across a managed pub group, checking whether it sustained Jägerlabs benchmarks with fewer controls.
How we delivered it
The programme, stage by stage.
Incremental portfolio sales, a hero serve and a playbook that held at scale.
Jägermeister Orange delivered incremental portfolio sales, supporting the mother brand as well as growing the broader shot category for operators. The trials identified the ice-cold shot as the hero serve and Jägermeister Orange & lemonade as the strongest long drink. Feedback on compliance, promotion and serve complexity shaped a practical playbook. Validation across 54 managed pub group venues sustained the initial benchmarks with fewer controls, giving Jägermeister evidence to inform rollout and strengthen the operator’s case for stocking the product.
10 independent venues · 54 regional venues · 64 venues overall
3 Jägerlabs trials in independent free trade, then 54 venues across a managed pub group.
Client quote
“The great thing about running GAZER trials is that it de-risks new product launches; you know how consumers are going to respond when they are actually faced with the product in the real world.”
How do you assess whether a new spirit launch delivers incremental sales?
Assess the new product alongside the existing portfolio and relevant category performance. In Jägerlabs, granular venue sales were compared with pre-trial and same-period-last-year data to understand whether Jägermeister Orange added sales rather than simply shifting demand between products.
How do you develop a serve strategy for the on-trade?
Test commercial performance alongside operational practicality. Jägerlabs assessed serve performance and gathered direct operator feedback, helping identify an appropriate long serve while understanding how build complexity could affect delivery in venue.
Why test a launch playbook in both independent and managed venues?
The two stages answer different questions. 10 independent venues provided the setting to develop and refine the approach. The 54-venue managed-estate trial then assessed whether it could sustain performance with fewer control measures, strengthening the evidence for wider rollout.
How does GAZER Optics™ support live-market trials?
Optics™ connects granular sales and category analysis with evidence of execution. For Jägerlabs, sales comparisons were considered alongside mystery shopping, customer intercepts and operator feedback to inform recommendations on serves, promotion and rollout.
Related questions
The questions a trade marketer tends to ask next, answered directly, so they can be found and quoted.
