Heineken Premium Light to Get Boatload of Money

Heineken Premium Light (HPL) will be targeting 1 million people for sampling.

Heineken USA is about to launch a campaign to puch the sales of Heineken Premium Light and close distribution gaps with Heineken, as reported in the Beer Marketer’s Insights.

From the BLI issue: “HUSA will be “spending a boatload of money” on HPL “generating trial” including over 5300 on-premise events, said sr veep mktg Ken Kunze. Aims to sample 1 mill people over coming mos. Turns out only 50% even aware of HPL, only 3% of households have tried it. But a significant majority of those who try HPL are repeat customers.

BMI quotes Chris Steffanci, Heineken USA’s senior vice president of sales, as saying that HPL is still in “launch” phase and its distribution level is not close to Heineken’s.

According to figures from BMI, Heineken Premium Light grew by 20 percent to 695,000 barrels last year, making it the eighth biggest import. Although a large increase, they fell short of projected goals.