Stella Artois, home vs. abroad

Stella Artois is a pilsner beer, a Belgian kind pale lager. However, the ‘Belgian kind’ is not equally produced or branded in every country.

Broadly abroad

In Belgium, Stella Artois is a general ‘pils’. For export, they have chosen to level up as premium pilsner, same beer with a higher price according to the branding.

The main reason for advertising as premium must be the worldwide competitors like Heineken or Carlsberg. Both were first into the pilsner beer exportation. E.g. Heineken is these days present in 192 countries (Wikipedia).

1 concept, except for (off course) Britain

Typical for Britain, Stella Artois had to cope with some issues. As British are used to drink big quantities but lower alcohol percentages, Stella Artois was simply too strong.
British call Stella Artois the ‘wife beater’ (The Independent). Probably just to joke about a 5,2% beer being a killer for heavy drinkers.

Especially for Britain, but also Ireland and Canada, Stella Artois lowered their alcohol percentage from 5,2 to 4% (Wikipedia).

Marketing concepts

The idea to grow internationally by branding your beer abroad as ‘Belgian’ and ‘Premium’, is strong. Both suggest high quality and good experience.
Still the problem for Stella Artois is being too late to conquer the world. I expect their business will grow, but they will never catch up with Heineken.

Even in Belgium, a ‘Stella’ is not the most famous pilsner. Also Belgians are starting to have more preferences for strong ales lately (De Tijd – in Dutch).
Pilsner is still the most drank, but the general beer volume goes down. Mostly because Belgians prefer drinking special beers these days: more alcohol per beer means less volume to consume. In the USA a similar trend is rising (Morning Advertiser).

To sum up:

I believe investing in exportation is a smart marketing move from Stella Artois. The domestic pilsner market is shrinking, but the abroad is still booming.