MURPHY'S is to spend £5 million over the next six months as part of a three year advertising and marketing campaign which it claims will double its share of the Irish stout market.
If Murphy's strategy is successful, the retail value of its stout sales will grow from £20 million to £40 million by 1999. About £2 million is to be spent on a new television advertising campaign, while the remainder will be invested in replacing all Murphy's branded items with the cream and black design used on its draught bottles and cans.
Guinness dominates the stout market with an 88 per cent share, but Murphy's marketing director Mr Patrick Conway argued that the company was doing little to attract younger drinkers. Beamish has about 7-8 per cent of the market while Murphy's is the smallest of the three with 5 per cent.
Every second pint sold in Ireland is stout and Murphy's believes that it has to have an advertising spend comparable to Guinness if it is ever to achieve critical mass in the Irish market. "We have to differentiate our selves, and there's no use doing it with a whisper," Mr Conway said. A better market share in Ireland would also provide Murphy's stout with "a backbone" from which to grow its exports.
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