SAB’s high-end brand marketing managers unpack how global beer brands like Corona, Budweiser and Stella Artois are approaching growth on African soil.
When the world’s largest brewery, Anheuser-Busch InBev, acquired the South African Breweries (SAB) in 2016, SAB kept its name. It was and would be forever known as SAB as this moniker formed part of its heritage. The South African Breweries has been an African brand for the last 127 years and none of that would be thrown away with the merger.
Of course, along with AB-InBev came some of the most recognised premium beer products on the global market. How has SAB given global AB-InBev beers like Corona, Budweiser, and Stella Artois an African heart?
According to SAB’s acting director for high-end brands, Thomas Lawrence, the consumer determines the direction. “The intention is to continue developing campaigns that consumers can relate to. That means telling African stories to an African market.”
Lawrence says consumers need to feel as if a brand aligns with their core values and principles. He points to Corona’s recent Free Surfers campaign as an example of how a beer brand can tap into local passions and share a purpose.
As South Africa celebrated Freedom Day, top surfer Cass Collier and internationally qualified lifeguard and surfing coach Khanyisa Mngqibisa opened about their journeys of overcoming stereotypes, prejudice, and apartheid to find freedom in the waves. Thus far, this campaign has produced a short film chronicling the journey of Collier with more on Mngqibisa on the way.
“Africans are passionate about their history and about their culture. There is a fine line between reverence and disrespect,” says Lawrence. “The challenge is to grow slowly and in the right direction. Tap into the passion and stop applying to much focus on the product. The African market needs to believe in your purpose before they believe in your product.”
Looking at a brand like Budweiser, the self-appointed ‘King of Beers’, this is Ab-InBev’s largest beer brand on the global market. Yet, in Africa, this American beer’s positioning is lost to consumers. Africa Zone marketing manager for Budweiser, Kwezi Vika, says, “As an American brand with American heritage, we had to take this global brand and give it a brand purpose that would resonate with African consumers.”
As of June 2022, Budweiser’s positioning in the African market, along with others around the world, will no longer be the ‘King of Beers’, it will be ‘greatness is yours to take’, a positioning that Vika says provides a better foundation to build brand love, and more importantly, brand respect.
Vika believes this new positioning will help the brand latch onto passions through existing global sponsorships. For instance, having sponsored the FIFA World Cup™ for over three decades, he says, “We will use our new positioning to entrench a World Cup campaign that our African markets will both resonate and engage with.”
From an American beer giant to the pinnacle of Belgian class, Stella Artois has also made significant inroads in growing its African market share.
Africa Zone marketing manager for Stella Artois at SAB, Itumeleng Wesi, believes that quality and aspiration provide a universal truth that any market can related to. However, he says the first step is to acknowledge where your brand comes from.
“The biggest challenge for brands growing in Africa is acknowledging that you are not a local,” says Wesi. “We can’t shy away from the fact that our brand has European roots, so it’s all about how we localise and resonate with Africans to earn their love and respect.”
Wesi says Stella Artois will soon be celebrating its roots by celebrating the ingredients that make this quality beer and illustrating how these ingredients have local origins, i.e., the use hops grown right here in Southern Africa. “We don’t need to change our product, but we can celebrate what makes it local,” says Wesi.
Between Corona, Budweiser and Stella Artois, Lawrence and his team of marketing managers are confident that these brands will continue to grow in South African and across the continent. As Lawrence says, “Although our success so far has been phenomenal, every market will provide a new opportunity to connect with the passion, purpose and energy that comes with being an African success.”
