Customer Demand Service Centres
JUNE 2 O O 1
re-establishing and building the Heineken brand. We believe the
volume will surely follow with time. I do not see any conflict aris
ing between the three brands, all three of them have different
accentuations, a different taste and a clear difference in how they
are perceived by consumers."
The stout segment was unknown territory for Nigerian Breweries
until recently. But with last year's introduction of Legend in the on
premise sector - the Legend Hot Spot Scheme-, the brewery has
taken a successful step in the highly profitable stout segment.
"If you look at the beer market as a whole, while the volume of
lager is three times that of stout, profit from stout stands at 36%
to 44% for lagers. Thus for the dramatic increase to profitability
which we seek, stout is the way to go!," enthuses Bola Akingbade,
who still has some stout irons in the fire for the year ahead but is
not willing to disclose details for competitive reasons.
DAMN! is the word displayed on a poster above the desk of
Customer Service Director Dan Esiekpe. No, 'DAMN' is not a curse.
It stands for Dominate All Markets Nationally and it is the slogan
that the 145-man sales force are working to achieve in 2001.
The slogan reflects the sense of urgency in the approach of
Nigerian Breweries. The sales division is currently undergoing a
large-scale reorganisation, involving a reduction in the number
of distributors from 1,500 to 120. "Those key distributors employ
their own sales reps and make direct supplies to their cluster
retail outlets. Previously the distributors sold the beer to a
middleman, who then sold it on to another middleman, and so on.
As a result we as a brewery were confronted with beer that was
no longer fresh and, in addition, we no longer had any control at
all over the price."
