Premium treatment for Kronenbourg
Already in October last year Brasseries Kronenbourg, Carlsberg’s subsidiary in France, announced a turnaround plan for the company built on a new brand strategy and a commercial strengthening. The objective is to make the company dedicated to satisfy the needs of customers and consumers and thereby improve the market share and the profitability. The plan includes re-launch of the main brands Kronenbourg and 1664.
The French beer market has been declining for many years and not least the last two years. The decline, Carlsberg says, is due to strong legislation which is getting more and more restrictive and to a general economic slowdown. French beer consumption declined 2.5 percent by volume last year
Even as market leader, Brasseries Kronenbourg is losing market share. Only one out of five beers drunk in France is a Kronenbourg.
The renewed marketing push started with billboards and in-cinema-advertising for Kronenbourg at the Cannes film festival in May. The campaign’s “freshly brewed” slogan aims to link Kronenbourg to quality Alsatian ingredients and what the brewer calls France’s “art de vivre”.
Four ads compare the more expensive “export” 1664 brand’s “goût a la Française” to well-known landmarks, like the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Promenade des Anglais de Nice. The one ad with the Rock Saint Michel says: “It’s a bit more than a rock; it’s a bit more than a beer.”
The brands’ packaging will return to the traditional red and white label for Kronenbourg and blue for 1664.
France accounts for about nine percent of Carlsberg’s revenue. Heineken, which trails Kronenbourg in sales by volume in France, gets higher total revenue because of its premium price, it was reported. France’s beer market was worth about EUR 7.5 billion in 2008, seven percent less than its value five years earlier, according to research from Euromonitor.
Kronenbourg has changed hands a few times in this decade. In 2000 its previous owner Danone sold it to Edinburgh-based S&N for GBP 1.7 billion (USD 2.6 billion). Last year it joined Carlsberg’s fold.
