Africa - Guinness's great black hope?: ThePost.ie


TCH Archives > Sunday Business Post > 2003/11/02 > Africa - Guinness's great black hope?

Africa - Guinness's great black hope?
Sunday, November 02, 2003

By Susan Mitchell

Guinness drinking is on the decline in Ireland,with volume sales falling by an annual rate of about 3 per cent over the past four years.

By contrast, African sales have been climbing sharply, thanks to an advertising campaign featuring a fictional action hero.

With the first recorded exports in 1827 to Sierra Leone, Guinness is now sold in some 30 African countries - from Senegal through to the Ivory Coast and Ghana to Nigeria, Cameroon, Zaire, Ethiopia and East Africa.The continent nowaccountsfor 10 percentof Diageo's annual sales,with Nigeria and Cameroon among the top five markets for Guinness.

David Armstrong, commercial director of Diageo Africa, said sales growth over the past few years had been driven by a hugely successful and multi-faceted advertising campaign featuring the fictional Michael Power.

Ad agency and Saatchi introduced Power in 1999 in a series of five-minute actionthriller ads in which he overcomes obstacles through perseverance and inner strength.

The character became so popular that Guinness backed a film called Critical Assignment, that features the character and Guinness.The film has been shown across Africa.

Guinness plans to spend more than €35 million on advertising in Africa this year. Diageo said that the drink

sells at a premium, partly because of the successful branding campaign. The group, which has a strong presence in East and West Africa, is planning further expansion into the continent.

Last month Diageo attributed the falling sales in Ireland to the growing practice of drinking wine at home, rather than Guinness in pubs, and to its rivals' aggressive discounting.

John Potter, global brand director for Guinness conceded that there was a problem with the brand's image on its home turf. He said the younger generation - 40 per cent of Ireland's population is under the age of 25 - considered Guinness a "grandfather's drink" and preferred larger.

Despite this, the brand's bosses are not crying into their beer. While domestic volumes fell by 4 per cent, global sales rose by 2 per cent on the back of this 10 per cent jump in Africa.