Rio de Janeiro, a city of eight million inhab
itants, was the first city in Brazil in which
Heineken beer was introduced.
same time the economy moved into
recession. The enormous inflation at
the moment doesn't make things any
easier for us.' An extra handicap for
Heineken was the government's
unexpected decision to allow impor
ted beers into the Brazilian market.
This decision came shortly after
Heineken beer had been introduced.
Imported beer enjoys high prestige
status in Brazil. For a premium (i.e.
pricey) product like Heineken an eco
nomic recession comes as an extra
hard blow. Certainly when the pro
duct is still in its build-up phase. As
regards beer, brand loyalty is reasona
bly well developed, though Nitsch-
mann feels that this should not be
overrated. 'People show a distinct pre
ference for a certain beer brand, but if
the bar owner doesn't happen to have
a chilled bottle of that brand available,
they easily switch to another brand.'
Ice cold
Brazilians love an ice cold beer: 2
degrees Celsius is about the maxi
mum drinking temperature. All the
Brazilians together consume some 60
million hectolitres of beer a year. The
beer market is still growing spectacul
arly and by the year 2000 the annual
volume is expected to have climbed to
100 million hectolitres!
Beer in Brazil has always been a
very ordinary product. There was no
clear market segmentation; simply
light beer and dark beer. So it was
(and still is) Heineken's task not only
to position its own beer but also to
develop the premium segment at the
same time. A tough job, but certainly
not impossible. 'Branded products are
very important for Brazilians, and that
offers us an ideal basis for developing
the premium segment', explains
Nitschmann.
The premium segment, currently
0.7% of the Brazilian beer market, has
therefore hardly been developed as
yet. But marketing experts forecast
that this figure will have risen to 2%
in the year 2000. This may not seem
very much but, with a total beer mar
ket of 100 million hectolitres, we are
still talking in terms of two million
highly profitable hectolitres for the
premium segment.
Heineken is rightly perceived by
the Brazilian as a local beer of premi
um quality. A small bottle of Heineken
commands a price which is many
times higher than that of a local
The Copacabana in Rio is world-famous,
but the surrounding beaches, like this one at
Ipanema, are situated in equally beautiful
scenery.
THE WORLD OF HEINEKEN
