As the dark beer market gets more competitive, efforts by Nigerian Breweries to leverage on the Gold Quality Award conferred on its Legend Extra Stout at the 51st Monde in Athens, Greece, as strategic marketing advantage is yet to translate to improved sales to make the brand the first choice dark beer. ADEDEJI ADEMIGBUJI takes an inside look at the stout war.
The coast is not yet clear in the stout market for Legend Extra Stout, the premium stout from the stable of Nigerian Breweries despite winning the Gold Quality Award at the 51st Monde where Guinness Extra Stout trailed the brand.
Monde, an International Institute for Quality Selections is the originator of the annual international event organised to identify and recognise outstanding global brands, had last year, adjudged Legend brand, the best after several blind-taste-tests, using certain parameters such as texture, flavour, bitterness, foam formulation, retention ability and smoothness.
However, investigations from sales record of major bars in Ikeja, Surulere and other parts of Lagos Mainland as well as popular joints on the Island confirms that Legend Extra Stout still trails Guinness Extra Stout in terms of patronage.
A NB distributor who pleaded anonymity said Legend Extra Stout brand team have failed to listen to feedbacks from some of the distributors. Part of the complaints had been that the brand, despite its beautiful bottle that is expensively made, has been positioned as inferior to Guinness Stout due to its lower pricing.
They also that the labelling denies it from being spotted from a distance like other market followers. “It is not eye catching from the distance, the bottle and label is so dark and customers have complained that they should make the label lighter and brighter but leaving the content as it is,” a salesman told National Mirror at one of the bars.
Though launched in 1992, 30 years after Guinness Extra Stout blazed the trail in the market category, the brand has risen to become number two, posing a major threat to Guinness Extra in the dark beer market having undergone a lot of repositioning in an effort to dislodge the market leader.
With promotional slogans and activations such as Legend Real Deal, Legend Real Deal Nite Activation, New Legend Extra Stout-carry Da Torch, which campaign played around the dynamic flame and torch, the brand logo, it appears that the brand team has created the much needed awareness within the 360 of marketing mix.
Since its introduction, the Legend brand has aggressively pursued the youth market as target consumer through several campaign themes such as it’s your life Xpress Ur Independence Now! using a model that ad critiques said passes messages to ladies to go wayward as shown by the model’s dress all in the name of sex appeal.
Another campaign was, Life’s Much More Fun, which showed a male and female model caressing each other and Correct bros don come!.
The brand has also made efforts to capture the lower segment of the market with one campaign theme, Aaah! Legend in 2008, yet, the road to being market leader appears to be going uphill. NB has attempted to rebrand the dark beer, changing the bottle in 2004, 2008, 2007 and 2009 but these efforts have not translated to impressive sales.
Beyond change of bottle, NB reduced the bitterness, alcohol content and removed the observed ‘burnt taste’ that gave the brand the initial unpleasant flavour, which was perceived not to be the quality of an ideal stout, some consumers still say the taste is yet to meet the Nigerian consumers taste bud, saying the Gold Quality Award blind-taste test is not a reflection of how consumers feel beer should taste.
Currently, NB is running Legend Real Deal Activation, where brand loyalists can walk away with fantastic prizes but investigation reveals that as slow growth remains the hallmark of the brand’s market performance.
The Marketing Director of Nigerian Breweries, Mr. Walter Drenth, said that, “over the past 20 years, the Legend brand has continued to position itself as a credible choice of stout, full brewed, the way an original stout should – giving Legend the credibility to be called the Real Deal, – a sincere proposition that has sustained the brand’s growth since the relaunch and acceptance in 2009.”
In the last decade, the major players in the stout market have been Guinness, Legend and Wilfort Dark Ale but the Guinness Stout has consistently maintained leadership of the market, but with a serious resistance from Legend yet NB is not giving up on efforts to make the brand the clear winner of the “stout war.”
In an interview with National Mirror, Senior Brand Manager, Legend Extra Stout, Mr. Funso Ayeni, said since the brand won the Gold Quailty Award, the sales has grown and the impact of the award is reflecting on the sales record of the brand.
