Pogossian Luxury Brand House Pushes Into the Middle East

Armen Pogossian has spent most of his working life in spirits and tobacco. As chairman of Pogossian Luxury Brand House, he now spends a growing share of it arguing that the Middle East is the natural next market for an Armenian luxury group. The company operates in more than 60 countries, employs over 1,000 people and holds a place in 500 travel retail locations worldwide. Its expansion across the Gulf and North Africa is picking up speed.

Five markets are already covered: Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Algeria and Morocco. Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates come next, with entry planned for the near future.

The group was founded in 1999 and remains a family business. It works in the spirits and tobacco sectors and builds cultural collaborations between Armenia and the rest of the world. Its headquarters are split between Yerevan and Beausoleil, near Monaco.

Those 500 travel retail doors carry weight. The group works with major global operators in that channel, which puts its products in front of travelling shoppers rather than only domestic ones, and gives a family-owned producer a reach that would be slow to build market by market.

Why the region fits

Pogossian gives three reasons the Middle East suits the group: proximity to Armenia, the consumer mindset and purchasing power. He adds a fourth that is harder to put in a spreadsheet. The region, he says, has always valued luxury, quality and good taste.

He also talks about how business gets done there. Pogossian says he sees honesty and openness in the Middle East, and that people keep their word. He says he appreciates that trait in Arab culture deeply. The group's stated ambition in the region is to bring it what he calls the best products and flavours.

Middle East businesspeople, in his description, are very personal and relationship-focused, and he treats that as an operating condition rather than a compliment. He compares an online friendship with a friendship formed face to face to explain why a company has to be present with its partners. Visiting a business, letting a partner walk through its office or its factory, convinces people the company is serious. In-person relationships build trust, and trust makes the transaction easier.

Dubai in mid-November

Pogossian will be in Dubai in mid-November for industry events that form part of the group's international expansion strategy. His first reason for attending is defensive. Many companies try to copy or counterfeit the group's products, he says, and showing up demonstrates that the original is present in the market. It may also discourage imitation. Deterring copycats is, by his account, the primary purpose.

The second purpose outlasts the event itself. Attendance puts him in the same room as peers in the trade, and relationships formed in person are the ones that carry commercial weight across the region.

From the floor to the chair

He started at 15, working alongside his father, and moved from manual tasks to the chairmanship over the years that followed. The division of labour that emerged is clear. His father concentrates on production, engineering and product building. Pogossian concentrates on business development. The two complement each other, he says, and he is candid about the asymmetry between them: his father's experience in crafting a product is something he may never match, while sales and business development complete the cycle. Learning the trade from the bottom of it may explain the weight he puts on the unglamorous parts of selling.

What he enjoys is relationship building and the construction of sales and marketing strategies. Commerce, he says, interests him most.

The chairman's remit covers senior management, operations, strategic decision-making and key stakeholder relationships worldwide. He sets the group's long-term direction and is responsible for effective governance.

Repeat business as the test

His commercial logic is straightforward. Product development, he says, requires understanding who needs a product, what it is for and how it differs from everything else on offer. Sales requires understanding a niche, the audience inside it and the needs that audience has not voiced. Differentiation alone will not carry a company for long. Long-term success takes consistent value, strong customer relationships and continual improvement.

Repeat purchases are the measure he trusts. By his account the company has not failed to secure a repeat purchase in the last ten years. A good product creates its own demand, he says. The right service, backed by continued product development, shows buyers they are not alone in the transaction. Product support and development together are what turn a sale into a business.

That is where the repeat-purchase claim comes from. A buyer who returns is evidence the service held up after the sale, not just that the packaging worked on the shelf. Pogossian frames support and development as the part of the job that continues long after the invoice is issued.

Two very different regions

The brand is well known in Asia, where retailers and wholesalers often approach the company directly. The Middle East requires a different approach because the group's presence there is still growing. That means adapting the portfolio to regional preferences, fine-tuning products to local demand and possibly introducing limited-edition SKUs aimed at different tastes.

Underneath the commercial motive sits a wider one. Pogossian wants to strengthen economic ties between Armenia and the Middle East. The two have exchanged culture for thousands of years, and he hopes the company's growth contributes to the continued development of that relationship.

Counterfeits and the QR code

His advice to entrepreneurs starts with intellectual property. Protect it, he says, and educate customers. Counterfeiting is widespread in some markets. The answer is to perfect the product and build authenticity verification that is difficult to replicate.

The group uses a QR code security system in many of its products, particularly in markets where counterfeiting risk runs high. Customer booklets explain how to scan the code, verify authenticity and identify a counterfeit. The booklet is the low-tech half of the defence, and it does double duty: it teaches a buyer to spot a fake while showing them what the genuine article should look like.

Technology keeps evolving, he notes, and companies that use it stay ahead of the people copying them. Copying is also a signal: it means the original company is in front. Continuous improvement and a steady flow of new products deny imitators the opening they are looking for. Preserving the family's craftsmanship legacy, he says, depends on the same discipline, because a legacy that stops moving stops being one.