What caught our attention
Imperial Blue has been the subject of an acquisition. Deals like this are usually valued on volumes, distribution and scale.
We wanted to see what the consumer side of the brand looked like in BII over the same period.
What BII shows
Imperial Blue · Buying Intent
Imperial Blue · Buying Intent: 3.5, July ’26.
Signature · Buying Intent
Signature · Buying Intent: 35.8, July ’26.
Royal Stag · Buying Intent
Royal Stag · Buying Intent: 22.9, July ’26.
Imperial Blue · Brand Desire
Imperial Blue · Brand Desire: 1.2 to 4.4 to 5.8, May to Jun to Jul ’26.
What sits underneath
Imperial Blue’s Buying Intent sits well below two established whisky brands in the same month. Its Brand Desire, though, moved up across three successive readings, May to July ’26.
Wanting the brand is rising from a low level; keenness to buy has yet to show the same movement.
Why this matters
What an acquirer takes on at signing and how consumers feel about the brand are different things. BII puts a reading on the second: how keen consumers are to buy, and how much they want the brand.
For Imperial Blue, the rising Desire readings are an encouraging early signal. The distance in Buying Intent shows how much consumer strength may still have to be built.
What we would watch next
BII reads every brand every month, so each of these can be followed as it develops.
- Whether Brand Desire keeps rising beyond 5.8.
- Whether Buying Intent begins to follow Desire upward.
- How the distance to Signature and Royal Stag changes month by month.
How BII can be used this way
M&A and portfolio review
Before or after an acquisition, BII offers an outside-in reading of a brand’s consumer standing — Buying Intent, Brand Trust and Brand Desire against its category peers.
It sits alongside financial and distribution due diligence rather than replacing it.
See the six ways brands use BIIMethod and caveats
- Period
- July ’26 for Buying Intent; May, June and July ’26 for Brand Desire.
- Category
- Whisky.
- Scope
- BII’s monthly national reading across the 16 cities it covers.
- Reading
- Figures are BII index readings as published. Imperial Blue’s readings rest on a thin base of respondents, so treat them as directional. They describe consumer standing, not transactions, and do not attribute any movement to the acquisition.
Independent BII analyses. Brands featured are selected because we find the market development noteworthy; inclusion does not imply a client relationship.