Positioning of Heineken via sport sponsoring in the German beer market

Scientific Study from the year 2004 in the subject Sport - Sport Economics, Sport Management, grade: High Distinction, University of Technology, Sydney (School of Leisure, Sport and Tourism), course: Sports Marketing, 28 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Beer and sports are undisputably two of the most vividly discussed topics in international business. Determining a possible market entry strategy for one of the world's leading breweries in the internationally neglected and extremely fragmented German beer market is therefore an interesting and challenging task. The positioning, connecting and advertising of the Heineken brand through sponsorship agreements seems to be a promising form of addressing the market. In the first part of this project the peculiarities of the German beer market and the Dutch company Heineken are presented. Secondly, the main characteristics of Heineken's market approach, its core strategy, the main target group and positioning are analysed. The central part of this paper discusses a market entry via sport sponsoring as well as potential 'Bundesliga-partners'. Apart from advantages and disadvantages of sport sponsoring, possible synergy effects and ways of how to effectively run a sponsorship campaign are highlighted. Findings of this paper are partly based on an online survey, which tried to gain a better understanding of young Germans´ perception about beer in general and Heineken in particular. The survey was run on the internet for five weeks and provided some valuable information on how to effectively position Heineken in Germany. The paper concludes with findings and recommendations about the most promising positioning strategies to be applied to successfully enter the German beer market. In 1864, the largest brewery on the Dutch market 'The Haystack' was purchased by Gerard Adriaan Heineken, who dedicated his life to provide the best beer quality on the market. Nine years later Heineken's Bierbrouwerij Maatschappij N.V. was founded, which today is known as Heineken . The brewery always was and still is a family owned business. Heineken's grandson, Alfred Henry Heineken, became a major incluence within the company and was known as the pioneer of marketing. It was his design of the logo with the smiling 'e' along with the red star, for which Heineken is famous for all over the world. Alfred Heineken created a new market for high quality premium beer, which may be expensive but also to relied on and - most importantly - internationally distributed in more than 170 countries worldwide. Quality therefore is the key to Heineken's success: [...]