The saga about Dunhill pipe tobaccos

Fast forward to this summer (2019) I suddenly get a press announcement from the STG. They announce that they have bought the Dunhill Pipe Tobacco brand. The information was limited, so it was a little hard to know what it meant. Nevertheless, I was glad about the news because the STG is making the Dunhill Pipe Tobaccos very well, so for me this is the right fallout. But strategical I thought it was a strange progress during the three years. I mean, the shelf space is gone in most countries – and in this context shelf space is both the physical space a brand takes in a physical shop as well as the virtual shelf space at the online shops. Shelf space is crucial for the tobacco brands for obvious reasons, when it is almost impossible to do marketing of tobacco related products due to legal restrictions in almost any country.
 
So, in August 2019 we hear about some of things that the STG is planning: Dunhill Pipe Tobaccos will no longer be called Dunhill Pipe Tobaccos but…Peterson pipe tobaccos. What we do know is that six of the Dunhill Pipe Tobaccos will be relaunched as Peterson Nightcap, Peterson Early Morning, Peterson Mixture 965, Peterson Royal Yacht, Peterson Elizabethan and Peterson Standard Mixture. At present moment I dont know what will happen to the rest of the old Dunhill brands.

From my perspective this is a very strange development and that is why I call it Fawlty Towers version 2.0. Nevertheless, I am excited to see how the customers react, and this is also one of the reasons I decided to write about this. For me it is important that the customers know that the Peterson ‘Dunhill’ tobaccos are the real deal – the STG knows how to make them. I fear that customers who don’t know the background story will think that the STG are making a knockoff like the two cases I mentioned earlier.

There might be a lot of details unknown to me that might shine some light on why it took so long – and why they only use the recipes and product names and not the brand?

Honestly, I can’t figure out who is the winners and losers. Right now, it looks like we have lost the wide selection (18 Dunhill pipe tobaccos), but 6 is better than zero. A winner also might be the American company who bought the Peterson pipe brand. For them this is excellent. The STG is a giant company with lots of sales representatives, so a strong presence of Peterson pipe tobacco could rub off on the sale of the Peterson pipes. With all this in mind, it is kind of interesting that the STG owns Stanwell pipes and naturally compete worldwide with Peterson Pipes. With that said STG is a giant, and they have many talented people working for them, so I am sure they have their reasons and if I ever get more information I will let you know.

However, we look forward to the ‘new’ Peterson pipe tobaccos. At present moment we don’t know when they will be available, but I am guessing in the end of this year or beginning of 2020.