Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Interview with Trevor O'Hoy - CEO, Fosters Group

Read an interesting interview with Trevor O'Hoy (Fosters CEO) on australianbeer.com
Here's an interesting response to a question posed by the interviewer:

Q - "...Did VB's national success take Foster's by surprise, and why haven't you pushed it internationally more?"

A - There’s nothing surprising about VB’s success. It’s a great tasting beer, it’s down to earth, understated and unpretentious – just like the average Aussie bloke. We take the ongoing stewardship of VB very seriously. It is our most successful brand and Australia’s favourite beer and we aim to keep it that way.

As for taking VB overseas, we’ve learnt a lot through the Foster’s experience and we are cautious with the potential ‘internationalisation’ of VB. The economics of the international beer market mean it’s hard to take a mainstream beer into a foreign market – as with many brands, what is the ‘house’ lager at home is often presented as a premium brand overseas – a positioning that may not necessarily work for a brand like VB.

One of the many benefits of the sale of Foster’s to S&N is the freedom we now have to take brands from our portfolio of beers into other markets. What we would need to weigh up is whether meddling with VB’s positioning is worthwhile or whether we should focus on brands which already enjoy premium positioning, e.g. Crown or Cascade, or enjoy global interest such as that generated via the Big Ad for Carlton Draught.

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Interesting...
Here's the link to the full article - http://www.australianbeers.com/beers/interview/ohoy/ohoy.htm

Cheers!

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