Young & Rubicam Group to handle SABMiller marketing and brand building for local premium beers across Africa in new deal.
SABMiller has signed a business deal with Young & Rubicam Group that will see the agency handle its marketing and brand building for local premium beers across Africa.
The deal signals the growing battle for control of Africa’s lucrative advertising and public relations business which has heightened over the past few months with consultancies keen to close in new clients.
From late last year, media relations firms have been aggressively shopping for new accounts as it has been the case with companies preparing to heighten marketing wars.
Advertising strategy and creative development has already begun on the SABMiller portfolio, which includes premium beers in Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Botswana and Ghana and seven other markets.
Commenting on the partnership, SABMiller’s premium category marketing manager for Africa David Minja said, “Y&R are no strangers to us. But when it came to this continental assignment they truly surprised us with the quality of their local insights.
"They are also quick off the mark; delivering results from the word go.”
Young & Rubicam Group’s Africa chairman Chris Harrison added, “We have enjoyed long and productive relationships with SABMiller in a number of African markets over the past decade.
"This win is significant in combining our talents behind a single category of beer, across many markets.”
SABMiller manufactures than 200 beer brands in over 75 countries, and recently has been aggressively moving toward producing more affordable beers in the continent using sorghum and cassava in place of the more expensive barley to drive growth in what is already the group’s fastest growing region.
The brewer’s Africa region, excluding South Africa, produces 13 per cent of group profits.
Speaking to Reuters, African regional managing director Mark Bowman said a large part of the strategy is directed by the need to make beer less of a luxury product than it is currently—averaging at $1 a bottle across the continent.
