A German to save Stella Artois
The blood-letting at InBev Germany continues. The latest to leave the brewer is Andreas Hilger, Managing Director Marketing. He is to move to the UK in order to help reverse Stella Artois’s flagging fortunes there.
They must have made him an offer he could not refuse. Andreas Hilger, Managing Director Marketing of InBev Germany, who has been credited with the successful launch of Beck’s Gold and Beck’s Green Lemon, is the latest to join the management exodus. According to rumour, Alain Beyens, who heads InBev’s Western European division, gave Hilger the marching orders for London.
The UK and Germany are InBev’s most important markets in Europe by a wide margin. Stella Artois, marketed with the catchphrase “Reassuringly Expensive” was one of the country’s major beer brands. However, for years Stella Artois’ sales have been in decline, and massively so. No one seems to know a remedy. Apparently, the brand became too popular for its own good and has just gone out of fashion.
Still, it must have come as a blow to InBev that in January, the London pub operator Young’s decided to delist the brand from its pubs, claiming the beer “wasn’t premium enough” – so the media reported.
Now all hope rests on Mr Hilger, who has been with Beck’s Brewery since 1995. After the acquisition of Beck’s by Interbrew in 2001 he worked with Interbrew/InBev for a while before returning to Bremen in 2004. Leaving Bremen should not have been too tearsome as for more than a year InBev’s revolving doors have never stopped turning. Hardly anybody remains of Mr. Hilger’s original brand management team for the Beck’s brand. Last year, the head of PR Dr. Jörg Schillinger left as did his deputy. It was recently reported in the German media that the manager in charge of the Hasseröder brand, André Castens is to leave as is the head of personnel, Michael Hinrichs, who joined InBev only a year ago.
The change in personnel is not doing the brands any good. According to estimates by Inside, a trade publication, the Beck’s brand in Germany lost 3.5 percent in volume in 2007, Beck’s Gold dropped 18.5 percent to 590,000 hl and Beck’s Green Lemon 4.6 percent to 400,000 hl. The Beck’s family of brands declined 7 percent to 2.9 million hl.
