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Cobra,
the beer owned by Lord Bilimoria, is launching a £14m
advertising campaign aimed at turning the niche brew into one of
Britain's top ten lagers.
Adrian McKeon, the new chief
executive at Cobra, said the TV and print campaign, which will start
in the summer, would put the independent company in the same
marketing spending bracket as the country's leading brewers.
The move comes alongside talks
about distribution deals with 20,000 independent pub companies as
well as a tie-up with another major pub group to expand Cobra's reach
outside the restaurant industry. The company already has a deal with Wetherspoons.
'Just under half of all men in
the UK have had Indian food in the past four weeks and in that market
we have 97% penetration,' said McKeon. 'We need to persuade
those men in the 28 to 33 age group that it is OK to drink Cobra even
when not in an Indian restaurant.'
Bilimoria, 46, is the son of an
Indian army general and entered the House of Lords last year as a
crossbencher. But his rise to fame began 18 years ago when he spotted
the gap in the restaurant specialist lager market.
He borrowed £20,000 and
launched his beer brand, going door-to-door persuading restaurants to
stock it. Sales of Cobra now top £43m a year.
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