Solid foothold for
Heineken in Australia
Must checking'
Liquor stores
Campaigns
Australia. A country almost as big as the United States but
with only sixteen million inhabitants. A lot of beer is drunk
there: annual per capita consumption is 115 litres. And yet it is
not easy for Heineken as a foreign beer to win a place both on
the liquor store shelves and in the hearts of the consumers. Han
Klarenbeek has been living and working in Sydney for several
years now and he faces one major challenge: giving Heineken a
permanent niche within Australian society
Part of street scene
Impulse buying
'Just checking' is the title of the new Heineken corporate
video. The film, shot on location in the United States and the
Netherlands, gives a lighthearted and original view of how
Heineken works and of the great importance we attach to qual
ity. The new video will be screened for visitors to the breweries
in Zoeterwoude and 's-Hertogenbosch.
HEINEKEN INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE NO. 18 PAGE
Home handicraft by a Melbourne store owner: he created this work of art,
complete with model windmill, from various Heineken displays.
shown growth and Heineken
proudly occupies number one posi
tion amongst the imported brands.
Just as in almost all other coun
tries in the world, Heineken beer in
Australia is a premium beer. If we
compare all premium beers (both
imported and locally brewed), then
Heineken occupies a gratifying sec
ond position.
Over the past six years, therefore,
a lot has been achieved. But Mr.
Klarenbeek feels that's no reason for
relaxing and putting our feet up.
"We still need to do an awful lot to
acquire that rock-solid position in
the Australian market." By 'we' Mr.
Klarenbeek means not only Heine
ken Australia. The distributors in five
states and their representatives and
the wholesale trade also have an im
portant role to play in these efforts.
budget is used to ensure integration
of the Heineken brand name in the
street scene, by placing parasols at
strategic points in the big cities, by
advertising on buses in Sydney, Mel
bourne and Adelaide, and by adverts
on taxis in Perth and Brisbane. In
this way consumers are being con
fronted more and more with the pre
mium beer Heineken.
Where the retail trade is con
cerned. Heineken Australia and the
distributors still have a big task
ahead of them. Alcoholic drinks for
home consumption are only allowed
to be sold by liquor stores. The
range of wines carried by such stores
is enormous. A selection of two
hundred different wine labels is
nothing out of the ordinary. The
An example of a Heineken advert on Sydney city buses.
Consumer promotional cam
paigns have also proved a successful
Heineken opened an office in
Sydney in November 1982 to gain a
tighter grip on the Australian beer
market. Before that time Heineken
sales were none too big: though our
beer was by far the biggest imported
brand, the total import segment was
extremely small. Having a Heine
ken man physically present on the
spot has borne fruit. Compared to
the total beer market, the import seg
ment may still be modest. But it has
In all possible ways Heineken
Australia endeavours, together with
the distributors, to boost the aware
ness of the Heineken brand and to
get a better grip on the buying and
drinking habits of the Australians. In
the past few years this has been
tackled in phases. Over the first four
years much energy and cash was
invested in newspaper and magazine
advertisements. Today part of this
liquor merchant wants to stock as
big a wine range as possible so that
he does not have to disappoint his
customers. However, as the stores
have a limited floor surface, this has
consequences for the selling pos
sibilities for, say, Heineken beer.
Displays occupy a relatively big
amount of space and the store-own
ers are afraid that this will reduce
their wine turnover. "It's difficult to
convince them that their margin on
sales of Heineken beer is higher than
that on wines. So that's one area
where we still have much work to
do", says Mr. Klarenbeek.
The liquor stores which have
started using Heineken displays (and
there are more and more of them)
"are regularly visited by a representa
tive who makes sure that the display
A presentation of the Heineken windsurf sail campaign in Melbourne.
method of increasing the sales of
Heineken beer. For instance, the
campaign with the Heineken
windsurfing sail. Every Heineken
six-pack was printed with a different
number. Each month a winning
number was drawn and the winner
received a Heineken surfing sail.
The glasses campaign is also
going better than anticipated. The
consumer can buy a series of eight
glasses with special designs in
return for a small charge. Purchase
of one Heineken six-pack entitles
him to buy one glass. The campaign
has now been running for eighteen
months and is still very successful.
There are already plans to make
future offers of collectibles such as
small Delft Blue plates and minia
ture Amsterdam canalside houses,
so that the consumer will automati
cally return to the store to build up
the collection.
All these activities are aimed at
ensuring that in a few years' time
Heineken beer will have become a
household name within the Austra
lian community.
is always clean and well-presented.
A really well-presented and, above
all, eye-catching display is the
Heineken bottle in the shop window.
This four-metre-high bottle is a
superb attention-grabber and every
retailer who has displayed this bottle
in his store during a promotion can
later look back with satisfaction on
the increased Heineken beer sales.
Why is that in-store presentation
so important? "The beer drinker in
Australia is an impulse buyer and so
he is easily impressionable. If a con
sumer goes into the store to buy beer
and sees a big Heineken bottle like
this as he enters, he will often tend
to buy a six-pack of Heineken. We
take advantage of this tendency to
buy on impulse", explains Mr.
Klarenbeek.
The American journalist Bill
Lewis, impressed by Heineken's
huge popularity in his home country,
wants to find out every detail about
this beer's background so that he can
write a lengthy article about it. Off
he goes to the Netherlands where he
ends up at the Zoeterwoude brewery.
There he learns of the existence of a
real 'Mister Heineken'. During his
rambles through the brewery search
ing for the real Mr. Heineken, he
keeps on meeting a man from qual
ity control. Each time that Bill asks
the man what he is doing now, the
man replies 'Just checking'.
