Nigeria has always been a lager market but stout brands have always been better at making money. A straight forward comparison shows that a 30cl stout would be sold at the same price as a 60cl lager, and that lager would be the premium one not low end. This market grew to become the 2nd biggest market for Diageo, the owners of Guinness, and that took some work. Guinness has been in Nigeria since the middle of the 20th century. It was brought in and initially sold in chemists and was, and in some cases is still, perceived as a tonic or having medicinal properties. The jury is out on how true these claims are but its having alcohol stopped the company from continuing to claim that Guinness is “good for you”.
Guinness built its first brewery outside of Ireland and the UK in Ikeja, Lagos in the 1960’s and the rest is history. I will come back to brand Guinness but for now let us look elsewhere. The company launched their own lager brand in the 1970s and it was called Harp. Harp also has Irish heritage and for those that do not know, the harp is an integral part of the Irish flag and history. After Harp there was a long stretch before other brands came on stream. First was Merit, which was a child of circumstance in the days when the military government banned the importation of Barley malt and each brewery had to find local replacements. This led to the death of many of the breweries in Nigeria at the time. Following Merit was Malta Guinness, the only non-alcoholic brand from Guinness at the time. After this came Satzenbrau (The Final Word!?!), Gordon’s Spark, Guinness Extra Smooth (the original Guinness is called Foreign Extra Stout – FES), Smirnoff Ice, Snapp, Harp Lime, Alvaro and Orijin.
Although the launch of new brands were few and far in between, the innovation pipeline for Guinness Nigeria was always rich. The company had so many great ideas in development and was stringent in allowing any new product get to commercialization stage. The innovation process, called Navigate, had rigorous steps and gates to be crossed and only the best and most viable get to the final gate. One might be right to say the company was very British, very risk averse.
There have, however, been some great campaigns by the company. Who can forget the ‘black thing good o!’, Black is beautiful campaigns, the ‘we’ve got the power’ and even greater Michael Power campaign. The Malta Guinness launch campaign succeeded in making malt drinks available to children with the good for everyone advert. Before the campaign malt drinks were like adult soft drinks and were never really targeted at children. The Malt Guinness campaign had children in school uniform with one of them doing an endearing little wiggle. Who can forget Satzenbrau’s use of teaser outdoor and TV. Showing just the ‘S’ and the ‘U’ and gradually filling in the gap until the full name was revealed. That was a first for Nigeria and everyone was talking. Within 4 weeks of launch in Lagos, 60% of lager drinkers in Lagos had tried the brand at least once, based on research by Millward Brown in 1995/96.
There was a malt brand that was never launched called Maximalt. It was to be flavours only, no regular, just banana, vanilla and pine-apple. This was shelved because just before its launch Maltina did a pine-apple flavor in addition to their strawberry and exotic fruit flavors. Trust Guinness and risk aversion, project shelved. There was bottled carbonated water that is probably still consumed within the company’s bars that never saw the market.
There were 2 periods in the history of Guinness the company when it had to roll up its sleeves to protect Guinness the brand. In the early 90’s the brand faced a lull, young Nigerians were not taking to the brand and saw it as a brand for ‘our fathers and father’s fathers’. Diageo had seen the impact such a feeling can have in the past with Ireland as a case in point. The team in Nigeria was tasked with turning this around and making the brand relevant to young beer drinkers. This led to the brand running a modern and youthful campaign using a then – contemporary (reigning) music theme – We’ve got the power. The original called ‘I’ve got the power’ was by British based C&C Music factory. The campaign had a muscular young man as the only character but was captivating. On top of this, below the line promotions were run in NYSC camps and youthful locations under the ‘Power’ campaign. On top of this the company also rolled out the first national consumer promotion for the brand to mark its 30th anniversary. The two shots were right on target.
The second threat was the potential introduction of Legend stout by NBL in the late 90’s. NBL had tried to enter the stout market in the past with Mackeson Stout and there had been Power stout in eastern Nigeria but neither made much impact and fizzled away. There was talk that the introduction of Legend was because Guinness broke a gentleman’s agreement by entering the malt drinks market with Malta Guinness but as far as this writer is concerned, no such agreements ever existed. From the body language and moves in the market, it appeared that NBL was really serious about being in the stout market this time and Guinness was prepared to do what it took to protect its market. Fortunately, the Legend product wasn’t that great at the beginning but with determination NBL continued to improve the product and with its cost advantage (it was sold at about lager price) it gradually gained followership. NBL initially tied up with bars to start ‘Legend Hot Spots’ in Lagos but this route fell apart as the urban locations these outlets were in did not yield fruit. Their next foray into less affluent locations like the fringes of the urban centers and cost conscious locations gave traction.
One more event impacted on Guinness Stout and this was adulteration. The brand shared the same bottle with other ‘stouts’ like Legend, Power, Wilfort Dark Ale and there were placed where the labels of those brands were taken off and the Guinness label attached. This was happening in Iponri market as well as at Ashade market, right next to Guinness’ Ikeja brewery. It was big business as a bottle went in at 50 naira and came out as Guinness at 100 naira. Many hinted at it but no one was willing to risk their life taking the police there. Even when the police were taken, the setup would have been moved away the day before. So following on a bottle change by Star earlier, which incidentally moved Star above Gulder in volume, Guinness designed a new bottle for Foreign extra stout thus curbing the adulteration and growing Guinness’ volumes as consumers were now sure that they were drinking the real thing instead of the gamble of previous years.
What has brought all this ‘down the memory lane’ story telling? Guinness is now wedged into a corner. The fear in the past of SAB Miller coming into Nigeria was mostly a Nigerian Breweries thing and Guinness never saw them as a real threat. After all Nigerians in diaspora still long for the real Guinness of Naija and not the weak stuff available everywhere else. So how could Castle Milk Stout be a problem? They would only give NBL a headache in the lager area where their Castle lager would cause trouble. Well, they came in and I believe they are doing more in the lager space than in the stout but NBL prepared well for them.
As I write, Nigerian Breweries has 3 contenders in the stout market – Legend (refused to die), Williams and Turbo King (not sure they are truly stouts but here we are). They have a wide array of lagers starting from Heineken as the king, through Star, Gulder, Star Lite, Star Radler, Star Triple X, 33 Export, Goldberg, Life and More. For malt drinks, Amstel Malta, Maltina, Malta Gold, Maltex, Hi-Malt, Hi-Malt Choco twist, and Fayrouz. For RTD, Barcardi Breezer range, Ace, and Ace roots. And one energy drink called Climax. 24 brands. All these against Guinness’ 10: Guinness FES, Guinness Extra Smooth, Harp, Satzenbrau, Dubic, Malta Guinness, Alvaro, Dubic malt, Snapp and Orijin.
I said NBL was prepared for SAB Miller. They prevented their entry for as long as they could by buying up anywhere SAB looked. That’s how Continental breweries (33) became part of the NBL family. SAB whispered to Sona breweries and NBL bought them up and they did this across the country. In some cases the companies were bought by Heineken and in others by NBL. They now have an array of regional brands, that they are keeping regional and national brands that are waxing strong. They recently relaunched More lager in Makurdi and the brand is very Benue now. On the Guinness side I am seeing Dubic branding in some fringe bars on the outskirts of Lagos and wondering if they plan to make the regional brand national, counter-intuitive but we shall see.
So keep your guard up, why? To ensure you don’t get cornered and lose the battle. The presence of Guinness brands continue to dwindle, not my wish but what I’m seeing at events, bars, outings. It appears that a lot of the future is being bet on Orijin and NBL have launched Ace Roots to keep the brand busy. The previously little supported brand, and therefore highly profitable brand is now seemingly out-spending Guinness in outdoor and even though I have not seen it on TV, an ad may be out or in production. In the meantime NBL continues to take the cake in the other sectors.
Recently Guinness has been in the news as the company has changed MDs 3 times since November 2014. The Nigerian MD, Seni Adetu, was ‘elevated’ to … The replacement was promoted to head Africa after a few months. His replacement resigned for family reasons after 2 months and we now have a Kenyan at the helm of affairs. Quite turbulent for our previously stable house where MDs previous spent a minimum of 2 years. The road ahead is rough and they have our best wishes for success but really, how did it get to this state? Hindsight they say is 20:20.
