Super Bock, striving for a stake in the angolan beer market

: a case on Brand Portfolio Management and International Marketing

Abstract

In the western world the beer industry achieved a mature stage, which, aggravated by the economical depression, led many companies to internationalize their operations. Attracted by the fast paced growth that emerging economies are experiencing, most breweries developed long-term strategies in order to conquer those markets. Unicer, a Portuguese beer producer, has since its creation a commercial relationship with Angola, representing nowadays its second strongest market, after Portugal, with enormous potential to expand. Marcos Pereira, head of the international operations in Angola, is being pressured by the top management back in Portugal, to increase the sales volume of Unicer compensating the losses felt in the domestic market. Marcos and his colleague João Esteves, the marketing director of Unicer, will have to find a way to leverage both beer brands: Cristal and Super Bock, in order to increase the actual sales volume. They both know Cristal, despite being the market leader, does not have the potential to grow significantly, at least on the short run, and therefore they focus their strategies on Super Bock, a recently renovated product that Angolans start to accept quite well. The challenge Marcos and Esteves face is how to develop a market penetration without damaging the actual sales of Cristal. Esteves believes the cannibalization of sales is a consequence they have to accept in order to increase the overall results of Unicer but Marcos has the hope that the product line extension can be a middle term solution, protecting the company from the cannibalization issue.

Date of Award	2013
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	João Borges Assunção (Supervisor) & Paulo Alexandre Gonçalves Marcos (Supervisor)