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New brewe
for Dreher
Heineken's
'Grande Concorso'
in Italy
IW1
fe&fl
The Popoli brewery in central Italy.
know what you're drinking!')
Prominent in the background of beer's
growing popularity in Italy is the Anton
Dreher group, once the continent's largest
brewing business under one management.
They operated plants at Turin, Trieste,
Genoa, Pedavena (in the north), Massafra
(in the southern heel of Italy) and
Macomer in Sardinia. Today the Turin
and Trieste breweries are no longer in pro
duction and the company as a whole has
become a valued member of the Heineken
group.
Premium beer
The overall picture of Heineken's
Italian venture is an increasing public
awareness of the premium quality
international beer brewed in Italy, with
the name Dreher perpetuated in the large
and stabilized sales of a beer still a major
element in the production and marketing
programme.
The entire Heineken and Dreher outputs
are now shared by Pedavena, Massafra,
Macomer, Genoa and a brewery plant at
Popoli, 120 km east of Rome, recently
taken over from the Italian company
Moretti to strengthen production and dis
tribution facilities in central Italy. These
five facilities together provide ample
room for current production and for any
further expansion when needed.
Marketing hub is the main office at Milan,
where Mr. Leonida Zanchetta, General
Manager since 1975 and Mr. Alger
Oostra, co-General Manager since 1978,
are based, together with a team of exe
cutives.
Main beer market is in the north, where
much industry is based. Central Italy of
fers only limited opportunities, but satis
factory progress is being made in the
south. The market in Sardinia is except
ionally strong, with beer consumption
more than three times as great as on the
mainland.
Distribution throughout Italy is handled
through concessionaires responsible for
bringing the product from breweries to
point of sale - hotels, restaurants and other
outlets.
Marketing opportunity
The underlying fact is that Italy does not
have the strong beer tradition to be found in
other parts of Europe. Italians regard beer
not as a social drink, but as a soft beverage
to be taken with a light meal. But since no
one brand has an overwhelmingly domi
nant position there is a first class oppor
tunity for vigorous marketing.
Advertising is indeed an important ele
ment in the promotion campaign. There is
strong emphasis on quality and future pro
motion will continue to concentrate on it.
One of the main planks in the publicity
platform is a film which establishes identi
ty and stresses quality and technical excel-
^^ndeConco,^
Heineken
nel mondo
A weekend in Rome and a ticket for the
finals of the European football champion
ships. a Bianchi bicycle.or a Heineken
crown cork in 18-carat gold.
These were the prizes offered in a Heine
ken promotion competition organized by
Dreher S.p.A. in Italy earlier this year.
The competition, publicised under the slo
gan "Heineken Worldwide"was open to
the many thousands of Heineken retailers
throughout Italy and was designed to en
courage long term acquisition of Heineken
stocks.
During the five-month promotion every
carton of Heineken beer delivered to a re
tailer contained an entry form carrying six
colour photographs titledIn these cities
people drink a lot of Heineken"Each
shot depicted a famous feature of one of
the world's major cities. All the entrants
had to do was to identify the six cities,
write the names under the relevant pic
tures - and wait for the postman to bring
news of the prize.
In due course the postman rang 350 lucky
door-bells in various parts of Italy.
Twenty-five happy retailers learned that
they would be seeing the pick of Europe's
football teams competing in Rome (with
airline ticket and top quality hotel accom
modation thrown in). Seventy-five decided
to buy new bicycle clips to match their new
touring model Bianchis (or chose Canon
cameras instead); and 250 others consi
dered that with the price of gold rocketing
their 18-carat crown corks offered the
finest consolation they could hope for!
The campaign was supported by adverl
tisements in trade magazines and by leaf
lets distributed by wholesalers and trade
representatives.
The Dreher verdict: the competition was
highly successful. Orders from retailers
soared and there are signs that a large per
centage of the increase will prove to be
permanent.
Other recent promotions in Italy have in
cluded two ski championships at Peda
vena.
5
Tableau in the Massafra brewing house
see
Heineken
nel mondo
Vrtvi ijuaJ] moo.
