BOON RAWD BREWERY: Researching beer brand image and strategy options
This case study brings together quantitative and qualitative research methods to produce some powerful insights into consumer preferences and associations, and reveals alternative brand-positioning strategies. Boon Rawd Brewery is a household name in Thailand, and has an exemplary image as a good employer and a well-managed company with a strong record of social responsibility. The most famous of the company's products is Singha beer.
A research study, initiated by the company, was designed to elicit the positions of certain brands of beer in the minds of consumers, and the associations that were most important to the consumers. The study was also designed to reveal strategic opportunities for new and existing products. The research team brought together a series of customers in several focus groups, in the key geographic markets of Bangkok and Chiangmai. Participants were first asked to fill in a short questionnaire on the attributes they thought were important in choosing a brand.
Participants were then asked to consider six brands of beer predominant in the Thailand beer market. These were:
Heineken, a global premium brand, originating from Holland, which has seen good growth in market share in previous years
Carlsberg, another global brand and originating from Denmark
Singha, the traditional Thai beer, which had seen some image-development work in previous years to increase its acceptability to younger, affluent groups
Kloster, a beer made in Thailand, but branded and positioned as a European beer
Leo, a lower-priced beer, which was marketed primarily on a low price/lower quality strategy
Chang, a recent entrant, brought in on a low-cost strategy to take the lower-end rural market