Marketing
THE WORLD OF HEINEKEN
the values that drive us. For me and for the rest of the management
it's important to make those company values visible to our new
employees."
The establishment of business units is only one facet of the change
process needed to bring Heineken USA closer to the market. In the
area of marketing the decisions taken in recent years have had a
far-reaching and positive impact: portfolio management, extra
attention for packaging and, more than anything, ethnic marketing,
i.e. focusing on specific population groups within the US.
"Over the past five years we have seen the overall beer market
become even more mature, even more competitive. Everybody is
struggling because of the sluggish growth rate of 1.5%. And yet
there are two segments that have been doing well: the light
segment and the import specialty segment are showing good,
healthy growth. In the past five years the imported segment has
expanded and it now accounts for eleven per cent of the total
beer market." As Steve Davis - Senior Vice President Marketing -
explains, a new segment emerges every three to four years and
then remains highly popular for a brief period. At the end of the
1980s the trendy products were the wine coolers; in the early
1990s the dry beers and ice beers came along (and went).
"Mid-way through the 1990s microbrews suddenly became
tremendously popular. In 1997 alone 1,500 new brands were
launched on the US market. In the meantime 95% of them have
disappeared. At the moment the 'malternatives', flavoured malt
beverages, are all the rage. Within a brief space of time some forty
new products have been rolled out, there's been a 200-million dollar
investment in their marketing and now we're seeing a shake-out.
Ultimately only a few of those brands will survive."
Steve Davis concedes that in the past Heineken USA may have
occasionally had a few second thoughts about its strategy when it
saw the successes being booked by other brewers: shouldn't it
venture along the same route itself? However attractive the
'fast buck' may have been, Heineken USA withstood the temptation
and kept faith with its rock-solid portfolio in which Heineken and
Amstel Light are by far its most important brands - a portfolio
that Davis refers to shortly but succinctly as 'limited, but powerful'.
As he has seen, a (temporary) broadening of the portfolio in other
brewing businesses resulted in a lack of focus on core brands.
That is something he wanted to avoid at all costs.
