Estrella Damm

: a star's positioning in a new sky

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to study Estrella Damm’s internationalization and Positioning in Portugal. These decisions take a lot of responsibilities and risk, but are necessary for any company, in the globalized world. To understand the reasons behind these decisions, it is necessary to explain the motivations to go international, how the company has done it and at last, how it wants to be perceived by the new costumers. Grupo Damm, one of the leading breweries in Spain, has recently increased operations, in the Portuguese market. This internationalization has been prepared for a long time: in 2009, one of the brands of the group bought a plant in Santarem; after that, it was only a matter of time until operations increased. To support this process, Grupo Damm has made a strategic alliance with Sumol+Compal. From the side of the Spanish company, this partnership allows them to have a better access to the market, and take advantage of the strong position S+C has, in the Portuguese market. Afterwards, comes the decision of how should the brand position in the new market. Until now, this positioning has been similar to the one in Spain. It has targeted the premium segment, with special focus on the gourmet sub-segment. In order to understand this process, it was necessary to resort to two sources of data: Secondary and primary. The first one, Secondary, was collected from the company. This information allowed me to have a complete background about the strategy behind this whole operation. Secondly, there was also a need to gather primary data, an online survey, which allowed me to understand, from a reasonable sample, what were the perceptions of beer consumers towards Estrella Damm. To conclude this analysis it was deducted that consumers understand Estrella Damm’s positioning and have good references about it. Still, there is a lot to be done, it needs to increase awareness, since most of the respondents had never drunk or even know about the brand Estrella Damm.

Date of Award	2013
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Pedro Celeste (Supervisor)