Heineken’s much-hyped Island's Edge fails to dent stout market

Heineken’s challenger stout brand Island’s Edge is failing to make a dent on the Irish drinks market.

The Sunday Independent understands that sales are falling well short of targets despite one of the most heavily invested launches in Ireland for some time. Several million euro has been spent on advertising the brand since it launched in June 2021.

A number of market sources have cast doubt on the likelihood that Heineken would continue to back the product given that it has so far struggled to gain meaningful market share.

It is understood that industry figures compiled by Nielsen for the three months to February show that Island’s Edge has 0.1pc of the long alcoholic drinks (LAD) category – which includes beer, cider and stout – in pubs. This is known as on-trade in the industry.

The off-licence market share for Island’s Edge is believed to be 0.3pc. Island’s Edge has 0.4pc of the stout market, according to the Nielsen figures. When it launched, Heineken indicated it was aiming for at least 10pc of the stout category.

The category accounts for just under 30pc of the LAD category and is heavily dominated by Guinness, owned by international drinks giant Diageo.

Heineken had no comment.

At the time of launch, Heineken’s Paula Conlon said: “There is one dominant player and of course, we want to take our fair share and invest heavily in it. If I was pushed (on market share), we would definitely be looking at north of 10pc and that’s probably conservative.”

Island’s Edge targets drinkers aged in their late 20s and early 30s and was launched with an “ambition is to rejuvenate the category, get it back into growth and offer something different in the category”.

One of the main selling points of Island’s Edge is that it is a lighter, ‘refreshing’ stout and does not have a bitter aftertaste.

A slick advertising campaign launched last November focused on this message with the tagline, “it’s better, less bitter.”

The advertising blitz was on television, social media, outdoors and other media. But despite the heavy investment and promotions in pubs, drinks trade sources said that customers were not taking to the drink in significant numbers.

In April, the Heineken group said revenue for the first quarter of 2023 was €7.632bn up from just under €7bn.

In Europe it said beer volume declined “organically by 2.3pc, with high-single-digit volume growth in the on-trade more than offset by a mid-single-digit decline in the off-trade, partially affected by a shift in promotional activity in some markets towards later in the year”.

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