The good cheer for `the King of good times' has been generated by the World Cup special promotions involving campaigns for both consumers and dealers by the UB group breweries division, United Breweries Ltd.

Though the company had concentrated only in Mumbai, a heavy volume market for the UB group, the brand recall for its newly-launched Kingfisher strong beer was more than 50 per cent. The company claims that a study to this effect conducted by an international agency said that even after a day of its launch, the brand awareness of the strong beer was enormous.

Now the company is in the process of unveiling its strong beer in its home market, Bangalore. ``The company selected Mumbai for its World Cup promotions due tothe fact the Mumbai-ites were eager to see yet another strong beer brand from a domestic major,'' said United Breweries Ltd general manager (sales and marketing) Amit Shukla.

``The launch of our strong beer was coincident with the cricket promotions in print and television media. It clicked well and we are planning to launch our Ice beer in other parts of the domestic market. However, the introduction of Ice in other parts will be after completing the launch of strong beer across the country,'' he added. Currently Ice is available in Goa and Mumbai.

The UB group had conducted its World Cup cricket promotions in places like Willingdon Sports Club, Mumbai Gymkhana and others. The promotions have helped the company notch an 82 per cent growth in sales in these outlets during the period.

``Though the World Cup promotions with a cost of Rs 2 crore will generate only short-term returns, the re-purchase of the products, especially strong beer, will increase our marketshare in the country in a phased manner. Weare sure some of our competing beer brands are likely to lose their share marginally due to our promotions,'' Shukla said.

Currently, the breweries segment is dominated by United Breweries with a marketshare of 37 per cent (239 lakh cases per annum), while Shaw Wallace has 21 per cent, the Mohan Group (18 per cent), Mysore Breweries (8.4 per cent), and the balance with others.

Out of 37 per cent marketshare of the UB group, 24 per cent comes from Kingfisher lager beer, while the rest comes from Kalyani Black Label and Kingfisher Premium, Bullet, Ice and other brands.

According to Shukla, the success of the company's new product in Mumbai was due to its attractive packaging (which was shown is its commercials), its ability to cash in on the existing Kingfisher brand and finally, the existing demand for a strong beer in the country. ``There is a shift in the young generation towards strong beer,'' he added.

The company's `Kingfisher World Cup' offer for consumers included free tickets to the World Cupsemi-finals and finals. According to the scheme, the winner got free tickets to the World Cup '99 semi-finals and finals. ``We took about half a dozen traders and consumers each to England along with our officials to see the match,'' he added.

UB's promotion for traders was kicked off on May 6 and closed on June 13, 1999. As part of the campaign, the company had offered Kingfisher World Cup coupons which contains the name of the 12 participating countries. The traders had to name the winning team for prizes which included a Hyundai Santro, Sansui home theatre systems, Sony handycams, LG microwave ovens, Ericsson mobile handsets, Philips CD music systems and Rayban sunglasses.