The concept behind the Club Macanudo Touring Cigar Lounge is to recreate the experience of Club Macanudo, General Cigar Co.’s posh cigar lounge and restaurant in New York City’s Upper East Side. Equipped with a 30 cubic foot built-in humidor, leather furniture, and bar, the bus provides cigar smokers with the ideal atmosphere for relaxing and smoking. Two tour “ambassador,” are on board to greet consumers and answer their questions.

Earning a visit by the Macanudo bus isn’t a last-moment affair. “This is a large event with many requirements,” explains Cooper Gardiner, marketing director for Macanudo. To ensure an effective turnout, General Cigar works with retailers who’ve been scheduled for a visit by the Macanudo bus by supplying direct mail promotional cards an helping organize a 30-day promotional lead-in program prior to the event. General turns to its own database of premium cigar smokers, as well as a store’s own customer list.

While the average attendance at a retail shop is about 200 people, some events have drawn as many as 500. General Cigar encourages retailers to heavily promote “Retailers who step up to the plate create even bigger events,” notes Gardiner. “They’ll tie-in with other business or go ‘all-out.’” Typical tie-ins are with wineries, breweries, or restaurants. Retailers must offer customers deals on the featured General Cigar brands, but the payoff is significant: doubling or tripling a shop’s normal sales on the day of a bus visit.

Updated Tour for 2002

The 2002 Macanudo bus tour - the third since the bus debuted in 1999 - kicked off in February in Tampa, and made stops throughout the country at retail shops, jazz clubs, and sporting events including golf classics, horse races, and tailgate parties. It also featured an new theme and several new twists this year.

“The tour is a great opportunity for us to give back to our loyal customers and retailers who have shown their endless passion for Macanudo by making us the best-selling premium cigar in the country,” says Gardiner.

The “American Passion” theme of the 2002 tour built upon Macanudo’s current advertising campaign, which was launched last year, featuring favorite American pastimes and icons. The campaign debuted with ads themed around baseball and jazz - two “Like baseball and jazz, Macanudo encompasses the same classic, dependable attributes,” noted Gardiner. The jazz ad showcases renowned jazz drummer Chico Hamilton, who made appearances during the Macanudo tour. The most recent installment of the ad campaign features a 1956 Chevy pickup truck.

In addition to the new theme, General rolled out a new look for the bus itself. Gary Kelley, the official artist of the 2200 Kentucky Derby, was commissioned by Macanudo to depict the look and feel of the bus’s interior on a large mural on the. The painting captures a nostalgic mood, featuring three men enjoying cigars in the comfort and intimate setting of a classic cigar lounge, while the countryside passes by in the background.

The painting was created to capture the experiences on the bus as it travels across the country. “It provides the outside world with an inside glimpse of the bus,” explained Kelley.

Macanudo invites smokers to visit their local cigars stores to pick up free tickets for the bus. Once aboard, consumers get a chance to smoke their choice of Macanudo cigars and enjoy such amenities as flat screen TVs, a DVD player, and a CD player. In locations where space permits, the tour literally rolls out the red carpet, with an extended lounging area and entertainment area for public and private events.

Joining the tour this year for the first time was Providence, R.I.-based Colibri, presented as the tour’s “official lighter.” Colibri stocked the lounge bus with many of its leading cigar accessories, including v-cutters, punches, and its industry-first triple-flame lighters, which are ideally suited for cigar lighting.

“Since 1928, our brand has always been synonymous with cigar smoking and we pride ourselves on setting the pace for the cigar lighter industry, “ says Mike Reynolds, president of the Colibri division. “We couldn’t think of a better cigar to align ourselves with than America’s best-selling premium cigar.”

A website dedicated solely to the tour, www.macanudotour.com, allows visitors to view a complete schedule of upcoming events, read short updates from current tour stops posted by Gernhauser and Freesmierview, view photos from past events, and enter online contests for a chance to win free Macanudo and Colibri prizes.

General Cigar has also used the Macanudo Tour to generate excitement for limited realize cigars, such as the Macanudo Vintage 1997 Cabinet Selection cigars, which were only available for sale at retail stores visited by the touring lounge.