Heineken takes the fight to Stella

Heineken has taken an aggressive stance against premium lager rivals Stella Artois in the battle for sales.

In a new marketing campaign entitled "Stella's free ride is over" the Dutch-owned brand is sending out a branded "battle bus" challenging consumers to step onboard and blind sample Heineken and Stella side by side to see which one they prefer.

They hope to get 50,000 people involved in the sampling campaign and will be running a series of adverts in men's consumer magazines.

Heineken is confident people will prefer their brand to their Interbrew rival. Recent independent research carried out by Research International showed two-thirds of premium lager drinkers preferred Heineken in a direct taste test.

However, Phil Rumbol, marketing director at Interbrew UK says he does not feel threatened by Heineken's tactics: "Heineken has made no secret of its plans to take Stella Artois head on rather than grow the sector as a whole - so we're not surprised at this approach as they have a fair amount of ground to make up," he said.

"After all, it's an ambitious target for a brand with a 1.4 per cent share to close a 39 per cent gap on the category leader. It's actually a compliment to Stella Artois and recognition that we are the brand that others aspire to beat."

However, Chris Duffy, customer marketing controller for Heineken, rejected Mr Rumbol's criticisms: "I would completely counter the accusation that we are not trying to grow the premium lager sector. What we are doing is helping to provide consumers with more choice and this choice is actually helping grow the category."