Does point-of-sale display play any role?
Not really. A lot of middle and upper income homes don’t go to the shops themselves. They could, for instance, send the driver. Some shops in Mumbai even deliver at home. So you have a situation where the consumer pretty much knows what he wants. So the scope for point-of-sale promotion is limited. You have to get into the consumer’s mind somewhere else. The next level of consumer buys the beer himself. They can be influenced at the shop. Or you can influence then at the ahatas or the shops. Then how do you promote your brand? While retail margins are controlled (by the state government), you still have the opportunity to offer the trade some discounts linked to purchases. But we prefer not to go down that route. The second way is to create a consumer experience and then consumer demand. We have positioned our brands very clearly. Carlsberg is an all-malt beer — the first in the country — and we have positioned it as the Mercedes Benz of beers. It targets customers at the high end of t
