newlifetaxidermy

I don't think people are hating on the brand, they are just hating on the gimmicks and marketing. I have not read a post where folks are bashing the sticks. On the contrary, Tats are some of the best NC sticks out there.

He will never be as big as Altadis or General. If that is his plan, I think he is living in lala land. People recognize brands like Punch, Montecristo, RyJ, etc from the brands' Cuban heritage. To say that selling some monster themed sticks or whatever marketing ploy you can come up with is going to boost your name recognition to that of brands that are well over 100 yrs old is crazy.

The best marketing tool for cigars is still the rating your brand receives in Cigar Aficionado magazine. While we all have our opinions about the magazine, it is where the average cigar smoker on the street gets his or her information about different cigars.

I could understand all the marketing ploys and gimmicks if Pete made chitty cigars (look at the way CI, JRs, Thompson, etc market some of the off-the-wall nastiness). His smokes are some of the best in the business and deserve to be treated as such. I can understand making a few collectors boxes, etc but making a limited production that sells at only certain shops and then hyping it up is and was a recipe for disaster. Folks were calling around to different B&Ms looking for Dracs. While this seems to be good for boosting the brand, I think a lot of folks got their feelings hurt as a lot of loyal Tat fans were not able to procure them on the open market and had to pay through the nose for them. Some B&M owners were jealous of others who received shipments and they didn't...etc. It damaged B&M reputations with their local customers in some cases and was an all around boondoggle over cigars that were not some of his best work. He could have sold more cigars at the same price by offering every one of his retailers a certain number of boxes.