Strengths:
1) The taste of Heineken beer is unique
2) It is known for its good taste, rich tradition and History
3)Heineken is the world’s second largest beer manufacture.
4) It is the world’s leading premier Beer. It is acknowledged as lighter beer of superior quality
5) The packaging is attractive
6) They have substantial market share in EU and America and have fast growth in Asia and Australia market.
7) The company has through mergers and acquisitions obtained distribution line efficiencies which in would add to the market reach of the Heineken and would give it a much deeper penetration to the untouched markets.
Weakness:
1) Its brand image is not being consistently projected in Brands communication
2) It has lack of global presence in bottling business. IN the majority beer consuming market, Germany and US it’s imported and not bottled
3) The difference in brand image across global markets is hurting Heineken. Heineken is losing market share in Europe (drop in sales 1.6% compared to 1992 ratings.
4) The local Heineken brand managers had the resources to develop own commercials which were not always aligned to the Heineken brand image that the managers at headquarters wanted to project.
Opportunities:
Brand Awareness:
Heineken matches itself throughout its branding campaign to its target audience: the engaging, witty, and lively young man, looking for an exciting thing. Heineken is incredibly clever by reinforcing the brand name multiple times throughout its platforms, making that connection with the target audience.
Brand Recognition:
Heineken’s branding campaign is brilliant in its approach to finding the perfect exposure time to its target audience. It’s not done too frequently, and is done at key moments to consistently remind the target audience of Heineken’s connection to their message “for the man who knows their way around” and “progressing beyond your own borders”.
Brand equity: Heineken has highest brand equity versus competitors in Vietnam. Achieving strong brand equity translates to a higher value perception in the marketplace. This means that Heineken has competitive advantage against their competitors as mentioned below:
Heineken has highest brand equity versus competition
Source: Usage and Attitude Research carried out in Vietnam
Note: VBL = Vietnam Brewry Limited
Benefits of high brand equity:
- Loyal customer: High brand equity is a key quality to generate loyalty.True loyalty often means customers pay more and go out of their way to buy from your company or to buy your products.
- Greater Profits: High brand equity puts you in a better position to achieve high price points in the marketplace while maintaining or growing demand.
- Expansion opportunities: By leveraging the value of brand, Heineken can expand into new markets, extend brand with new store concepts or products and increase revenue streams.
- Bargaining Power: brand equity also gives you a leg up in negotiating with manufacturers or distributions.
Challenges:
The challenge for Heineken is that being a global brand it has to have a communication strategy that retains its uniformity so as to make sure that a single message is conveyed yet it has to take into account the local culture and nuances of different markets. Heineken brand can be developed by building on the five core brand values like taste, premiumness, tradition, winning spirit and friendship. To differentiate themselves from the competitors, all the five core brand values were needed in their brand communication; where taste and premiumness were regarded as the price of entry.
Taste: Actors should be genuinely enjoying with no gulps drinking and the slogan used should be competitive not comparative.
Premiumness: It should be at the level of excellence expected of a premium brand. It could also be presented as part of the brand promise.
Tradition: It should be the preferred brand of people who believed in true values and whose brand choices reflected their personal value set.
Winning Spirit: Tone of voice is important in conveying this value “because winners are confident and relaxed, take a quiet pride in everything they do and do not shout.”
Friendship: The group should be few people who clearly enjoy their relationship. It should show people as themselves, content, relaxed with each other and confident.
All the advertising must be consistent with these guidelines.
The role of the Heineken’s headquarters should communicate the fundamental brand values, to remember and acknowledge local differences. The key is to find the right balance between central guidelines that the entire organization “lives” by and the content of the brand at a local level. It’s only when they will understand and properly manage the relationship between the global brand and the local consumer that they will have a strong global brand. The communication thus has to be different while maintaining a central core that is uniform.
Image & Brand strategy 