SABMiller this week updated its Africa strategy: "Double the price of beer, Halve the price of beer and Go Farming." Double the price is explained above with a case study on its Castle Lite brand; the other two pillars were explained in two other videos, explained as:

Halve the Price of Beer: Halve the price of beer refers to our strategy of innovating and producing more affordable beers using local ingredients and creating an entry point into commercial beers for consumers who are trading out of informal alcohol and entering the formal alcohol market. In this short film we introduce the strategic context and look at how our traditional beer Chibuku Shake Shake has grown in Zambia and showcases how we are innovating to extend our reach to more consumers through PET in our new offer Chibuku Super.Continue reading...

J. C. Penney Company, Inc. today ousted its JCPenney brand president, Michael Francis, who oversaw the retailer's merchandising and marketing operations, with a terse statement that "We thank Michael for his hard work at jcpenney and wish him the best in his future endeavors."

Francis, who was hired last October "at great expense" (as the New York Times retail reporter tweeted, in light of his whopping $12 million signing bonus) from Target is seen as taking the fall for his boss, company CEO Ron Johnson, the former Apple top retailer who oversaw JCP's new brand strategy in January. Now, of course, the heat is on Johnson to clean up a mess that was arguably of his own making.

For an executive whose goal is to "simplify" matters internally and externally, it was Johnson who championed the idea of killing coupons and sales in favor of "fair and square pricing" (a reference to its logo), so-called "monthlong value" and "everyday low" pricing and twice-monthly clearance events on every first and third Friday (aka "payday" in America). The brand recently scrapped that strategy and is re-embracing the dreaded s-word — "sale."Continue reading...

JCPenney has a newfound love for "sale." Ron Johnson, the CEO of JCPenney, this week continued his efforts to claw back the troubled retailer's new business model this week by telling an investment meeting that the company now will be moving away from the implausible term "month-long value" that was introduced in January as part of its new pricing strategy in favor of re-embracing a word that had become verboten at Penney HQ of late: "sale."

"No one really understood [month-long value]," he told the Piper Jaffray Consumer Conference in New York on Tuesday about why the retailer is re-embracing the S-word after making a big splash about dropping it back in January. "What we intend to do is a sale. We run 12 a year."

Yes, Johnson is busy backpedaling from one of the ribs of Penney's new business model — to eschew sales and other "confusing" consumer promotions in favor of an everyday-low price strategy — following dismal first quarter results that saw coupon-clipping moms stay away in droves.Continue reading...

At some point, JCPenney CEO Ron Johnson is going to run into massive credibility problems with shoppers, investors and employees. He may already be there.

As part of its new "fair and square" pricing strategy that was introduced as part of its brand refresh in January, the retailer announced new promotions that would give lower prices on specific days of the month and also that some products would have better pricing for month-long periods. Coupons, in a risky move, would be eliminated — a move, it turns out, that didn't sit well with "couponing moms".

But one bad quarter later, in addition to lowering prices every first and third Friday of the month (aka "payday"), Penney’s has backpedaled on its non-promotional stance by adding five additional "Best Price Fridays" throughout the year that will also feature lower prices, such as the one before Memorial Day weekend.

While the move is designed to woo back customers after the brand's dismal first quarter, at least one analyst is afraid that the addition of the new days will confuse consumers even more.Continue reading...

American brands are starting to use some disturbing history as pretense for what kinds of marketing tactics they believe may work in a troubled U.S. economy. Coca-Cola has been doing that lately by offering a greater variety of small beverages sizes and lower price points in the American market — an idea with its origins in the success of a similar gambit in Mexico in the wake of its 1994 peso devaluation and economic crisis.

Coke plans to announce this week the launch of a 12.5-ounce, 89-cent bottle, broadening its menu of smaller alternatives to its traditional 20-ounce single-serve bottle, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Last year, Coke rolled out a 16-ounce, 99-cent alternative to the 20-ounce size. The company also plans on slashing prices of its existing 7.5-ounce "mini" cans in supermarkets by about 20 percent, to $2.99, the report adds. The smaller packages carry lower sticker prices, but of course, higher margins for Coke because the consumer pays more per ounce.Continue reading...