Marketing war among breweries breaks out

The owner of a small restaurant in district 2 in Ho Chi Minh City said three years ago, he employed about 10 workers to serve. However, nowadays, he only hires a few workers. 

A foreign brewery, which cooperates with him, provides PGs, very professional workers, who not only serve beer but also help customers order dishes.

The restaurant’s owner is satisfied about the cooperation. “The number of employees is lower, while beer sales have increased,” he explained. 

If the owner allows the brewery to set up a beer stall at the restaurant, he would get additional income of VND15 million a month.

Hoa, the owner of a restaurant on Nguyen Xi Road in Binh Thanh district said when he  opened the restaurant, he received representatives from two or three breweries who came to suggest cooperation with very attractive conditions.

A mini survey conducted by VnExpress reporters in Ho Chi Minh City found that each restaurant or beer club in the city has 3-5 PGs in charge of marketing.

This is why the budget that breweries allocate to advertisement and marketing campaigns has been increasing in the last two years. Some breweries are believed to spend trillions of dong to run the campaigns, while the spending on PGs alone is hundreds of billions of dong.

The shareholders of Sabeco, the Vietnamese brewery which holds the largest market share, who attended the latest shareholders’ meeting, might see a row of PGs receiving guests. 

In 2015, Sabeco spent VND1.269 trillion on ads and marketing campaigns, an increase of 43.2% compared to the year before.

VBL, the producer of Heineken, Tiger and Larue beer, is believed to be spend more on marketing.

In 2015, the manufacturer spent VND167 billion to hire PGs from SPSC, an increase of 22% compared with 2014. This was the biggest ever spending by the brewery in the Vietnamese market.

Carlsberg, which ranks fourth in Vietnam in beer consumption, had spent VND450 billion on marketing and ads this year, while the budget for PGs is nearly VND100 billion.

Unlike the other breweries which sign contracts on hiring PGs with other businesses, Carlsberg itself selects PGs for itself. Foreign PGs were hired to serve the ad campaign to introduce Tuborg in early April.

Declining to reveal the budget for PG, Sapporo Vietnam (SVL) said in 2015, it employed about 700 PGs.

According to the Vietnam Beverage Association (VBA), in 2015, Vietnam had 129 brewers which can put out 4.8 billion liters a year.