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FEATURE STORY
On a Roll
Rolling events make
cigar-buying an occasion
By Kris Verhage
Having a special event every so often can be the ideal way to draw in new customers, connect with regular customers and give sales a boost. Now, for tobacco retailers who carry CF Dominicana Cigars, one special event can be a snap—thanks to CF’s Cigar Catering®.
Photo courtesy of CF Dominicana Cigar Co. and Cigar Catering® |
So far, CF Dominicana Cigar Co. and Cigar Catering® have been quite successful on the Internet. Dennis Briganti, company president, founded New York City-based CF Dominicana Cigars in 2001 and launched Cigar Catering® in mid-2003. Sales for both his cigars sold on the Web and cigar-roller events have increased by 400 percent from last year, he says.
This fall, CF Dominicana is opening a wholesale cigar division, and would like tobacco retailers to be a partner in their success, offering to hold cigar-rolling events at no cost for retailers that carry CF Dominicana cigars and have a good mailing list from which event planners can work.
CF Dominica cigars are made in New York City and Miami of tobacco imported from the Dominican Republic. Connecticut Shade or Maduro leaf is wrapped around Dominican filler daily. CF Cigars’ most popular brand, Soho, sells on the Web for $24.67 for a four-pack and $127.72 for a box of 25.
Photo courtesy of CF Dominicana Cigar Co. and Cigar Catering® |
Free with the purchase of CF Dominicana cigars, customers can have the cigar bands custom made to feature their initials or, if giving a gift, the initials of the recipient, Briganti says.
“We’re going to have a monopoly on the gift-giver when they walk into the store,” he adds. “It’s going to get attention.”
The customer can give the initials to the store owner, who gives it to CF Cigars. CF’s graphic designers create the bands, and the cigars are shipped back to the store for the customer to pick up.
“It’s just making the experience for our customers more personal than any other brand they may have,” Briganti says. “It’s the experience. You could get a flame with a matchbook. But there are people who go out and a buy a $90 lighter.”
And the company is looking to make that experience even more personal for retailers and customers by offering to host cigar-rolling demonstrations for retailers. With the wedding season over and holiday parties being booked, fall seemed the perfect time for the company to introduce its latest venture.
The personal touch
Photos courtesy of CF Dominicana Cigar Co. and Cigar Catering® |
At the retailer’s request, a cigar roller will come to the store for two hours and roll 50 cigars. Customers will enjoy the “personal touch” of having a cigar hand-crafted for them, says Anthony Fiset, events manager.
“You can’t imagine the expression on people’s faces when they see it being made,” he adds.
“It’s a way for me to get the brand experienced,” Briganti says. He is hopeful customers will stay at the store to watch the demonstrations, purchase CF’s cigars and take advantage of the free custom cigar band offer. As a result, they’ll return to the store to pick up their orders and browse the store’s other offerings, perhaps making more purchases, he adds.
Clients seem very receptive to CF Cigars’ offer, Fiset says.
Between 50 and 60 stores are on a waiting list to host cigar roller events, Briganti adds.
“We should be in stores in less than a month,” Fiset says during an interview in early September.
Jersey Smokes in Jackson, N.J. is one of those businesses on the waiting list. The store owner decided to host an event after CF Dominicana had sent the shop a sampling of its products, says store manager Brian Graydon.
“They seemed to enjoy them,” he says of his co-workers. “We thought the customers would enjoy them, too.
“It’s a good cigar,” he adds. “It’s not too expensive. The quality is very good.”
Graydon is hopeful the event will provide publicity for the store, which has been in business for a year. Jersey Smokes is located in a strip mall frequented by many customers, but “a lot of people still don’t know we’re here.”
For CF Dominicana, Cigar Catering® events are its bread and butter.
“This company makes it revenues off its cigar catering,” Briganti says.
Photos courtesy of CF Dominicana Cigar Co. and Cigar Catering® |
Cigar Catering® will send cigar rollers to events in 17 cities, he says. It especially seems to be big in Chicago, where weddings and corporate events are popular, Boston and Los Angeles, where many buy cigars on the Web because California taxes are so high, Briganti says.
It holds cigar-rolling demonstrations for typically between 50 and 350 guests at events such as weddings, birthday parties, corporate parties and events featuring celebrities. Packages generally cost $975.
CF’s caterers will consult with the event planner about the guest list to get a feel for the makeup of the crowd—whether it’s a young group or politicians or businesspeople. The cigar roller will get to work after dinner, when guests are mingling and enjoying after-dinner drinks.
“It adds a whole new visual to the party,” Briganti says. “It’s very exciting.”
As part of the package, hosts can work with the company’s graphic designers on customized cigar bands. Bands can feature personalized sentiments such as wedding dates and the names of the happy couple or even photographs.
For instance, the man who threw a party (complete with a cigar-rolling demonstration, of course) after buying a sailboat had a picture of his new purchase on the bands, Briganti says. And a bride wanted a picture of her dog on cigar bands when she featured a cigar-rolling event at her wedding.
“Most of our clients, 70 percent of them, are women,” Briganti says. “They’re either event planners or regular people.”
For example, a woman recently booked Cigar Catering® for her father’s 50th birthday at a New Jersey country club, he says.
While men tend to take their cigars and enjoy them elsewhere at the party, women tend to linger and ask questions, he says.
“They appreciate (cigar-rolling) as a craft,” Briganti adds.
Cigar Catering® also has held demonstrations at its share of high-profile events such as a party at the E.J. Gallo vineyard in Sacramento, Calif. In February at Zo and Magic’s 8-Ball Tournament, a celebrity pool tourney in Houston benefiting the Alonzo Mourning Charities and The Magic Johnson Foundation, it rolled cigars for Johnson and Mourning, as well as actors Matthew McConnaughey and Queen Latifah, rapper/actor Ice Cube, Dallas Cowboys star Terrell Owens and NBA legend Michael Jordan.
The company would like to make cigars and cigar-rolling a bigger part of sporting events, especially championship games, where locker rooms always seemed to be filled with happy victors drinking champagne and smoking cigars, Fiset says.
“The company is very receptive to working with high-profile events,” Briganti says, adding that CF Dominicana has supplied cigars to the set of television shows “The Sopranos,” and for “Sex and the City” when it wrapped its last show in 2004.
For more information on CF Dominicana Cigars, log onto www.Cfcigars.com. For its wholesale division, call (305) 677-2855. For more information on Cigar Catering®, visit www.CigarCatering.com. |
