Services Marketing

Services

Heineken, which is the manufacturer of Amstel, offers pre-sales services. There are a lot of advertisements about Heineken and Amstel. Heineken had a commercial with James Bond 007 in it, and they adapted their logo to this commercial. Heineken is a well-known beer around the world, and they promote their product very good. You can see Heineken on the television, in videos, in movies, on the internet and also at sport events like for example the UEFA Champions League. Pre-sales services also provide quality control, and Heineken is a good quality product because there are a lot of positive feedbacks about this product. Heineken also has Heineken Experience, which is a tour where you get information about the history of Heineken, the way it is produced and you can taste the beer.

Heineken promotes their best-known beer the most, which is Heineken, but they also promote Amstel in several ways. Amstel also has commercials on the television, and they are the sponsor of a very popular event in the Netherlands, Vrienden van Amstel Live.

Extended marketing mix

The extended marketing mix consists of 7 P’s (Product, Promotion, Price, Place, Process, Physical evidence, People). Heineken provides a lot of products, which is the first P. They manufacture and sell a lot of different brands like Amstel, Brand, Affligem, Desperados, Wieckse, Sol and of course Heineken. Also these brands have different kinds of beer, like for example non-alcoholic beer, wheat beer and radler which means that Heineken has a very wide range of products. The second P is promotion, and that is what I already explained. Heineken uses movies, internet, television and events to promote its products. The third P is price, which varies because of the places where it is sold. For example beer in the supermarkets is cheaper than beer you can buy at a restaurant, because the restaurant also needs to make profit. The fourth P is place, which is hard to tell because Heineken has a lot of breweries all over the world, but most popular brewery in the Netherlands is the Heineken brewery in Zoeterwoude. The fifth P is process, which is the way the product is presented to the end consumers. Heineken is manufactured by the producers, then sold to wholesalers who then sell it to retailers and they present it to the end consumers. In supermarkets Heineken and Amstel is presented in bottles or cans, and in restaurants Amstel and Heineken is presented in glasses. Physical evidence is the next P, which is the ambience of the place the product is sold. In supermarkets and restaurants, they try to increase the ambience by putting on some music, with some nice lights and other aspects that influence the ambience. The last P is people and focusses on the main target audience of the product. For Amstel this is men between the 18 and 34.

New services

Heineken has a lot of promotion already, but most of it is for the best-known beer brand Heineken. In this way Heineken stays very popular and can even get more customers. Amstel also has some promotion, but not as much as Heineken. I think they can change their advertisements and try to make Amstel more popular. They can do this by making more advertisements for Amstel worldwide, and less advertisement for Heineken. Heineken will remain the best known product of Heineken, but Amstel’s popularity will grow.

Intangibility, variability, inseparability and perishability

Intangible products are products that can’t be touched, smelled, seen or tasted. Amstel is of course tangible, because you can do all those things with Amstel. Variability is the quality of the services, because services are provided by people and everybody makes mistakes. These mistakes can have consequences on the marketing of Amstel, because the advertisements need to be clear and true. If this is not the case, customers might not understand the advertisements and Amstel might lose customers. Service inseparability is an important property which basically states that services are produced and consumed at the same time and can’t be isolated from their providers. So without the advertisements Amstel would be consumed a lot less than it is now. Perishability means that the product can be saved for the later use, it is beer so it will not perish really quickly.

Quality of the service

The Heineken Experience is a tour through the brewery. This is a good quality service, because customers learn more about the history of Heineken and Amstel and the way it is produced. Also they can taste the beers, which has a good influence on the consumer’s quality perception of Amstel.

Also the amount of promotion for the company Heineken has a positive influence on the consumer’s perception. Heineken is a well-known beer brand worldwide, and this means that a lot of consumer’s like Heineken. Because Heineken is so popular around the world, also a lot of people are familiar with Amstel, as it is produced by Heineken.

Promotional strategies

When exporting Amstel to a country it has never been exported before, I think that I could follow the adapt promotion. Heineken provides beer and this product cannot be changed. Promotion can be changed for every country. The main problem could be the language barrier. So to export to a country where Heineken has never exported to before they need to promote their product in the language that is spoken in that country.

Personnel

The personnel that is linked to Amstel are the personnel of the supermarkets and the personnel of the restaurants/bars/cafes. The personnel should have a little understanding of the product, because in this way they can convince the consumers about buying the products. The ability to provide good information about the product is good for the marketing of the product.