Beer Brand Comparison in Portugal

Table of Contents

1. Introduction1
2. Brands Inventory1

1. Super Bock1
2. Sagres2
3. TAGUS2

1. Brands Comparison4

1. Market positioning4

1. SUPER BOCK4
2. SAGRES5
3. TAGUS6

1. SHELF SPACE AND PRICE7
2. ADVERTISING STRATEGY10

1. SUPER BOCK10
2. SAGRES11
3. TAGUS14

1. Conclusions15
2. REFERENCES16

1. Introduction

As one of the top ten largest beer exporters in Europe, Portugal is home to several breweries. Beer has a long history in Portugal and the brewing can date back to as early as the first century B.C.

Nowadays, the beer market in Portugal is dominated by two strong leaders, Unicer accounting for 45% of total volume share in 2014 and Central de Cervejas accounting for 38% share.[1] Under these two main brewers, Super Bock and Sagres are the two most consumed national brands in Portugal. For other brands, their struggle continues to be to create enough product attractiveness so to be able to compete against these two heavyweights. Therefore the competition for the third place in the market are quite strong, yet the market share differences among the small brands are quite small, therefore we choose a young brand Tagus which currently takes up 1% of the Portuguese beer market share with the ambition to grow in recent years. By comparing the three brands, we are trying to understand how brand positioning strategies can affect the brand image and the sales of the product in the beer markets.

This paper first introduces the basic information of the three beer brands, covering history, brand logo and product line etc. Second, comparison is made on these competitive brands based on brands strategies in terms of Market Positioning, distribution, pricing, advertisements. Fourth, there is a conclusion. Finally, limitations of the paper are discussed.

1. Brands inventory 

1. SUPER BOCK

As the core brand of Unicer brewery, Super Bock was established in 1927 and became the market leader in Portugal in the 90’s. Until today, it still maintains the 1st choice of beer for most Portuguese consumers and it keeps expanding its beer product lines to explore the market. In 1967, it launched the first advertisement under the slogan “The beer that goes beyond your expectations”. [2] In recent years, the slogan changed to “taking friendship for real” which is considered to be the most relevant to consumers.