Executive SummaryHeineken NV, a long tradition of superior quality and taste, has been perceived differently from market to market. With the discovery of common perceived Heineken brand values across markets through Project Comet and Mosa, the company should pursue a global branding strategy. To do this, Heineken would need to create compelling ICM strategies and provide a “platform” flexible enough to handle branding for local marketers. It should have both a centralized and decentralized marketing organizational structure to successfully promote a global brand and support local marketing managers in defining and implementing ICM strategies tailored to each local market. Situation Analysis: Heineken NV is a well-known and renowned brewery with essential strengths (Appendix-1) to be a global brand. However, at this time, the perception of the brand is different from one country to another. Although Heineken has consistently been marketed as a premium brand, in the US and Hong Kong market, a distinct image has been established for special occasions rather than everyday consumption, while in Latin America Heineken is seen, among others , like a beer imported from Europe. While the Comet and Mosa project strive to establish and evaluate Heineken's global brand identity and communication, the real test for Heineken lies in sustaining its market leadership and reputation in the neighboring European Union, which is by far the largest contributor to its sales. The Comet project demonstrates that the brand's tasteful image is based on 5 core brand values: taste, premiumness, tradition, winning spirit and friendship. The Mosa Project finds that premium beer closely connects important friendships and relationships that are built on the basis of pleasant, joyful, personal and luxurious social conditions such as meeting people, fancy meals, savoring, elegant parties, intimate moments and places etc. (Figure 7). The value of friendship would be presented in different social conditions through the expressions “true friends” and “consumers can count on Heineken as a friend”. The taste would be built on 5 brand values: taste experience, balanced taste, foam, advertising and packaging (Figure 6). Taste expressions can be presented in terms of quality and tradition, but they should not be presented in the brand vision because the research result shows the negative perception in the brand vision. Important issues: A global brand is needed to provide relevant meaning and experience to people across multiple societies. To do this, it is necessary to develop a brand strategy that takes into account the capabilities and competences of the brand, the strategies of competing brands and the perspective of consumer experience in the respective companies..
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