L’affaire Skol : l’interdiction de publicité est-elle la meilleure des publicités ?

Reaction from THB almighty was to be without surprise expected in face of the SKOL effect. Surprise! The strike back stemmed from the state itself.

The NBM brewery is being ordered to pull out every form of publicity for the SKOL beer trademark throughout the Malagasy territory during one year, order issued by the HAT´s communication ministry in March 2010.

This state led intervention is making a victim of the SKOL beer trademark produced by the NBM brewery, a victim of unfair competition. It appeared as sales extensively went up for SKOL, and down for THB. Now that celebrations are about to reach their high, the state is keen on preserving its French partner´s commercial advantage by making a clean sweep in the advertisement field.

THB T-shirts are now undisputedly widespread throughout the streets. Such a ban can however paradoxically come up to be the best ever commercial for SKOL. The lack of commercials on TV is already exciting consumers. The HAT state´s commitment to defend its French partner´s interests is making the issue a political stake, and SKOL, a martyr, a symbol of revolution oppressed by a tyrannical ruling power

The brewery itself might expect a renewed ban, on production this time around, if its sales do keep on skyrocketing as they did during the latest three days. The single solution is: braking consumption. No matter, the exceptionnally high demand in SKOL´s earliest days is serving the trademark all the way. Even a voluntary but anyway enforced suspension of supplies is no harm for the market.

Now that SKOL is out, THB is exploiting its undisputed advertisement leadership: in its website, on TV, throughout various events, and even through ringtones for cellphones. The Star brewery´s campaign is officially being tolerated, since “it is focusing on the trademark, and not on the product”… if it ever makes any sense at all…

SKOL´s notoriety is however a done deal. Since one month, SKOL is being drunk, SKOL is being required. Even the traditional fans of the three horses´ beer could not resist the Swedish wave any longer. In every place in which beer is flowing, the new king´s name is SKOL´s new 50Cl bottle.

Will the new wave finally die down, so that the HAT´s favorite drink recovers its title? In most of the selling points, the THB poster has no match. The competition´s new publicity weapon is however loaded by consumers themselves with a simple sentence: “do you have any SKOL?”