Mon, Jan 07, 2002 page18

• Heineken chairman blazed a trail for future marketers

  PASSING OF A LEGEND Freddy Heineken, who's father began brewing beer to give the people of Amsterdam a healthier alternative to gin, died of pneumonia last week at 78

  • THE GUARDIAN
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  In turning a beer into an international brand, the Dutch brewing magnate Freddy Heineken, who has died of pneumonia aged 78, proved that, with slick marketing and advertising, you can persuade millions of people to drink your product, regardless of whether it possesses any intrinsic merit.

  Heineken's major role in the explosion of his beer's sales internationally was brand image and marketing. "I don't sell beer, I sell warmth," he once famously said. Curiously, warmth meant the color green. Green labels and green logos abounded, and became synonymous with the name of the company wherever the beer was sold.

  Freddy Heineken chaired the company Heineken NV from 1971 to 1989, when he became head of its supervisory board until 1995. He was chairing the management board of Heineken Holding NV at the time of his death.

  He lived life to the full and was famous for his fast cars, private planes and beautiful women. But the fortune he made from his brewery also attracted the attention of the underworld. He made the front pages worldwide when he was kidnapped in November 1983, only to be released three weeks later after the payment of millions of guilders in ransom. After that, he limited his public appearances.

  Freddy joined the family-owned brewery in 1942 at the age of 18. The company had been founded in 1863 by his grandfather, Gerard Adriaan Heineken, who had been so appalled by the drunkenness in Amsterdam caused by gin drinking that he told his mother he would brew healthy beer for the people if she would buy the city's biggest brewery, De Hooiberg [the Haystack] for him.

  Heineken quickly embraced the brewing revolution started in Pilsen, in Bohemia, and switched from ales to the new method of cold fermentation or lagering.

  When Freddy joined the firm, it did not enjoy its current unrivalled domination of the Dutch beer market and had to battle for space on every bar with its leading Amsterdam rival, Amstel.

  Under his restless and driving ambition, Heineken beer was exported or brewed under licence throughout Europe, north and south America, the Caribbean, Asia and the far east, Africa and Australasia. Today, it brews more than 40m hectoliters a year from its Dutch plants and 100 breweries throughout the world.

  Adroit marketing was behind the success of Heineken in Britain. In 1961, Freddy reached agreement with Whitbread to sell his beer in this country. By 1969, sales were sufficiently encouraging for Whitbread to start to brew a special version of the Dutch beer.

  Sales of this thin and undistinguished beer soared thanks to one of the most memorable advertising campaigns in British history.

  With a sonorous voice-over from the Danish entertainer Victor Borge, the advertisements traced unlikely successes and reversals of history due to the consumption of Heineken, "which refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach."

  In 1968, Freddy Heineken pushed through a merger with his previously bitter rival, Amstel, a move prompted by the arrival in the Netherlands of the giant British group, Allied Breweries, which had bought the large Rotterdam brewery of Oranjeboom and planned to use it as a platform to turn Skol lager into a leading European brand. As Skol was arguably one of the worst beers ever known, Amstel and Heineken had little to fear.

  Freddy's last years saw him involved in a constant battle for European domination with his fast-growing rival, the Belgian Interbrew group. Best known for its Stella Artois lager, Interbrew has effectively sidelined Heineken in Britain as a result of takeovers of Bass and Whitbread in 2000. These moves resulted in the indignity for Heineken of seeing his British-brewed beer being produced by Interbrew.

  Freddy announced last November that he would step down from the chairmanship of Heineken Holding, but would keep his controlling shares in the group. He is survived by his wife and daughter Charlene, who will take over the family's controlling shares.

  Alfred Henry "Freddy" Heineken, businessman, born Nov. 4, 1923; died Jan. 3, 2002.
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