Associated Breweries (T) Ltd.
Tanzania
Product Images
Premium Serengeti Lager is a premium lager beer brand that comes in 500ml returnable and customised 330ml bottles. The brand targets ambitious, educated, informed and confident consumers who enjoy socialising and having a good time.These consumers fall in theA, B and C income groups. Most of the sales come from this mainstream segment, which comprises 85 percent of the Tanzania market.
The brand enjoys a 15 percent market share across Tanzania. There is room for growth; however, capacity constraints have limited the distribution of the brand to all parts of Tanzania. The brand has therefore focused on major towns where it enjoys a 22 to 30 percent market share.
Almost 90 percent of the beer business turnover comes from bars, which have unfortunately not adopted modern retailing trends but continue serving customers in the traditional (beer bottle) manner.
Premium Serengeti Lager has had phenomenal growth since it was launched in July 2003, with demand continuing to exceed supply. In the next five years, it is believed that the brand will be the number one selling beer brand in Tanzania. It is currently one of the top three beer brands in Tanzania.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Premium Serengeti Lager was launched as “100 percent malt, 100 percent Tanzanian”, with no added sugar or additives. The brand won a silver medal in the Monde Selection Institute for Quality Selections in Belgium in 2006/7. In 2006, the beer won a bronze medal at the prestigious DLG Awards, an honour from the German Agricultural Society.
Premium Serengeti Lager has been a trendsetter in many regards. It was the first beer brand to provide premium, custom-branded beer glasses, imported from Sahm in Germany - one of the world’s largest glass suppliers. The glasses enhanced the drinking experience, created huge excitement in the market and positioned the beer as a premium brand. Premium Serengeti Lager was also the first beer brand to come packaged in a 330ml pack with its logo embossed on the bottle. It is also the first beer brand in Tanzania to enhance packaging by adding a back label on the bottle. Other brands have since followed suit.
Premium Serengeti Lager is the main sponsor of the Tanzania national football team having pumped in 700 million Tanzanian Shillings a year for three years (2007-2009). This changed the current management, and renamed Serengeti Breweries Limited. The strategic plan involved installing new factory equipment, creating a new management structure, and launching a brand aimed specifically at the locals.
Premium Serengeti Lager, which was previously produced by Associated Breweries Ltd under the same name, was completely re-formulated and the packaging re-designed. The beer was re-launched under the name Premium Serengeti Lager in July 2003. The initial response was slow as consumers understood the packaging to mean a strong, sharp beer - which it is not.
The company embarked on a sampling and visibility campaign to educate consumers, followed by advertising in various media. The objective was to communicate the brand’s intrinsic worth and position the brand. These efforts were complemented by a continuous distribution drive to ensure the brand was widely available.The company started with a workforce of 50, which has since grown to the current 350.
As the brand grew, an attractive 330ml bottle, was introduced which proved very popular. Premium Serengeti Lager’s German brew master maintains stringent quality controls and follows German brewing standards, thereby maintaining consistent quality.The brand faced a myriad of problems when it came into the market. The bottle label - which is black and gold with a Leopard image - led consumers to perceive the beer as strong, sharp and bitter, as the black colour and Leopard image convey these properties.
The beer is, in fact, exactly the opposite - but this false perception was a major barrier to impulse trials.Another hurdle the company had to overcome was the critical issue of distribution. Competitors used unorthodox methods of persuading the trade not to stock the brand, forcing Premium Serengeti Lager to find other ways to reach consumers.
The company sold the beer directly to bars, put a delivery system in place, launched a sampling campaign to educate consumers directly, enhanced bar visibility and ran media campaigns to attract consumers.The other major hurdle was convincing consumers that the beer is easy drinking, which was solved through the sampling campaigns.
As the brands reputation spread through active advertising, marketing activities and word of mouth, it had a positive influence on distribution, acceptability and loyalty, leading to high demand. This forced the company to boost capacity, plan and forecast better; as well as widen distribution networks while continuing to build the brand.
