Heineken Case

“The beer industry in the United States generates $75 Billion in annual sales.” (Abelli, 4)

There is a threat of bargaining power of buyers as there is a lot of competitors, which give the choice to convert from one chain to another. Moreover, chains are working strongly in the promotion, price, opening branches everywhere, developing the product, and cares regarding quality. It

     In this paper I will be talking about the U.S. beer industry and in short an overview of the brewing industry worldwide. I will talk about the barriers to entry, economies of scale, government intervention, pricing, current market trends, product differentiation, and imports. The focus being mainly on the U.S. brewing industry oligopoly. The U.S. brewing industry has three major players: Anheuser-Busch, SAB Miller, and Coors/Molson. Anheuser-Busch is currently the largest brewer in the world, producing over 100 million barrels a year. Anheuser-Busch currently owns over 50% of the market in the United States, with Miller trailing behind at 20% and Coors at about 11% with the rest of the market occupied by imports and craft breweries. When analyzing any industry, how easy it is for newcomers to enter the market is a great importance. If there are high barriers to entry

In a world where large, corporate breweries rule the market, craft beer is created to please an audience that applauds the styles, techniques and flavors. Though craft beer can be purchased through several different outlets, the best place to thoroughly enjoy the entire experience of the specially made beer is in the brewery where it was made. The article titled, “In Lean Times, a Stout Dream” in The Wall Street Journal1 states that, despite the hard economic times and consequent consumer cutbacks, sales of craft beer, the industry 's fastest-growing segment, rose

Boston Beer Company (BBC) has enjoyed much success with their craft beers with Samuel Adams as their main focus. Being the leader of this segment, overtopping five of their competitors combined (Exhibit 1), the company now must decide how to take advantage of the light beer market. Boston Lightship, their current light beer, had been a small contributor in BBC’s product line. Currently, it is facing dwindling sales with product volumes down from 12 000 cases per month to 3000 cases per month.

The strategy that Heineken uses is that of differentiation. This strategy gains market share and competitive advantage by distinguishing their products from their competitors through excellent design. A U.S. wholesaler recently asked a group of marketing students to identify a group of beer bottles that had been stripped of their labels. The stubby green Heineken bottle was the only one among the group that showed an instant recognition. This strategy also focuses on high awareness, easy accessibility, and new products. Heineken spent a lot of money on the launch of Premium Light; the first time that brewer had created an extension of its flagship

One of the weaknesses to distributing Coors beer in the two counties is the competition of other domestic and microbrew beers. Although the consumer and retailer willingness to buy Coors beer is high, will they actually purchase Coors beer when it becomes available to them? The questionnaires have strong feedback for Coors beer in the Delaware counties but people may become biased by their customer loyalty to other beer brand. There is a big enough marker share for Coors to be implemented, but will Brownlow be able to succeed in this competitive industry.

A documentary film made in 2009, Beer wars features and describes the American beer industry distinguishing between the large and small breweries. The large breweries feature some main corporate companies like Coors Brewing Company, Anheuser-Busch, and Miller Brewing Company whereas the small breweries include craft beer producers like Moonshot 69, Stone Brewing Company, Dogfish Head Brewery, Yuengling, and others. The documentary shows how the beer market is controlled through advertising and lobbying, which is harmful for the competition in the market. There is a reason why the small companies are falling behind and the large corporates are controlling the market, which in turn makes it essentially oligopoly economy.

Boston Beer, in response to consumers’ preference changes to more flavorful and bitter tasting brews, was founded in 1894. Boston Beer implements a “quality at any cost” strategy with a strong emphasis on product differentiation and implementing quality ingredients into its products. For instance, Boston Beer was the first company to employ a stamped freshness date on its bottles and ingredients are imported from around the world. Additionally, Boston Beer relies heavily on contract brewing to gain competitive advantages. Boston Beer’s contract brewing strategy results in lower overhead and transportation costs, as well as

Unfortunately, this case study highlighted a point in time where Coors was not performing well. The first visible sign of their struggles was in Quiz 4, which highlighted Coors income per barrel drastic deterioration from 1977 to 1985. The charts and graphs included at the back of the case study gave a graphic representation of the relatively low market share Coors held in 1977 and how this decreased in coming years compared to companies such as Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Stoh, and Heileman. Market share is an important value driver when increasing a firm’s performance based on a comprehensive value metrics framework, and with Coors industry market share being low this provides a problem.

Within the craft beer market, consumers have many products to chose. A product is anything offered within a market that which fulfills a want or need (Armstrong & Kotler, 2015). In 2012, over 1,750 breweries operated in the United States (U.S.), with over 1,920 the following year (Brewers,

Buyers (consumers) have a great deal of bargaining power because the buyer has a variety of brands to choose from and a lot of options to choose from such as precook, fresh, roasted and boneless.

Although sales of premium brands have fallen in a steady response to the growing popularity of the craft beer. The industry revenue has been stable over the past 5 years. As a result, from 2011 to 2016 the industry revenue is expected an increase and growth annually at 6.7 percent over the five years,with a total of $39.5 billion . (IBISWorld iExpert) In the long-term, these numbers are expected that grow 0.9 percent annually within the next five years. The potential growth will be seen in the traditional and premium beer sector. As a response, the giant companies in the industry Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors look forward into the merges and acquisitions as a strategy to maintain market dominance. The strategy is based on the

Problem identification: The global beer industry was experiencing increasing competition due to the new and potential mergers and acquisitions of

That is undoubtedly case for Heineken. Analyzing its strengths and weaknesses it is clear that Heineken wasn’t a truly a global brand at the time the case was written, but was working on it. The confirmation of this is that the company’s presence in more than 170 countries all over the world. The brand is nationwide recognized, as a brand that was established in 19th century and from a local beer became a global icon. Heineken by working so hard on standardizing the brand image achieved its results. The goal for Heineken at the time was to build a demand for the product. In countries where the beer market is already mature like Japan, Australia or Spain Heineken never stopped growing. The obstacle for Heineken to become a global company was connected to the fact that Heineken’s marketing communication in many different countries was not consistent. Another obstacle that Heineken overcame over the years was the fact that it was difficult for the company to overcome the image of its beer as only for special occasions. To be global, Heineken must create the image and perception that Heineken is a daily beer. Also as of 1993, Heineken was associated in countries like Latin America as just only regular imported beer. To become global, the company needs to create advertising campaign in those countries emphasizing values of imported beer to build brand value and attract different customers. To be global Heineken needs to standardize its image and make it consistent