Cerana Beverages launched two craft beer varieties under its Bira 91 brand in India - Bira 91 White and Bira 91 Blonde. The beers have become popular through word-of-mouth advertising in Delhi and Bengaluru. Cerana aims to expand distribution of Bira 91 to eight more cities in the next year and raise $10 million in funding to support growth plans, including eventually brewing the beer in India. The company employs a marketing strategy focused on taste, experience and social media promotion to compete in India's beer market which is dominated by stronger beers.

1. Name: Rishab Gupta
Section- I
Enroll. No.- 15BSP100
MARKETING PLANS OF BIRA 91

2. ABOUT BIRA 91:
Cerana Beverages' Bira 91.
Category – Beer, 4.9% abv(Alcohol by volume or alc/vol)
Bira 91 unveiled at a sparkling ceremony by the Belgian
Ambassador.
Available – Since late last 6 month.
Location – India, available in Delhi in 33cl bottles in the off-
trade and in bottles and on draught in the on-trade.
Price – SRP(service release price) of INR(Indian Rupee) 150
(US$2.40) per 33cl bottle in the off-trade.
Indian craft brewer Cerana Beverages has released two
variants of its Bira 91 beer brand in its home market. The
company, which said earlier this year it is looking for
investors to help fund expansion, launched Bira 91 White
and Bira 91 Blonde.
Both versions listed in top 20 beers by GQ magazine.
Initially available in Delhi, the beers will roll out to Mumbai,
Bangalore and Kolkata, before hitting the US market in May.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Cerana is a start up with the mission to bring a craft beer
revolution in India. It is an original Indian handcrafted Beer, not
made in India nor does it have Indian barley or wheat but

3. imagined in India, Cerana’s key brands include Bira 91 White (a
low bitterness wheat beer) and Bira 91 Blonde (an extra hoppy
craft lager) available in draft and bottle formats.
Cerana also owns and operates the country’s first and largest draft
beer dispense network in restaurants and bars across the
country.In addition to its own brands, Cerana also imports and
distributes a portfolio covering major beer styles and more than
twenty brands, including the legendary names of the specialty
beer world such as the Belgian Blonde Ale of Duvel and Trappist
Beers of Chimay.
Cerana was founded by Ankur Jain, an entrepreneur and
engineer.Ankur Jain, CEO of Bira 91, graduated with a
Bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the Illinois
Institute of Technology, Chicago, in 2002. In 2008, he founded
Cerana Beverages Pvt. Ltd, which started as an importer of exotic
brews, and in May last year soft-launched Bira 91.
Tanmoy Mukherjee, chief marketing officer, Cerana, former
marketing head of Lavazza Coffee.
Anuj Krishan, former director with UBS Investment Bank,
London and an alumnus of IIT Bombay, as Chief Operating
Officer, as part of the expansion plans.
Anshul Agarwal, Vice President-operations in the leadership
team, manufactured and exported garments for nearly five years.
Cetrana has six partners who own about 75% of the company (the
remaining stake is with a bunch of individual private investors).

4. The company employs 50 people, of whom 25 have been added
in the past 45 days.
By October-November, Bira 91 will be produced in India,
initially with two contract manufacturers—one each in
Maharashtra and Rajasthan.
SITUATION ANALYSIS:
1)MARKET SUMMARY:
The logo of Bira 91 is a reverse B, which Jain says shows “a
spirit of rebellion against the conventional”.Bira 91 was
“imagined in India” and made in Belgium with French and
Belgian malts, hops from Himachal Pradesh, and water from a
source near the contract bottling facility in Delhi.
2)MARKET NEEDS:
“Hand-Crafted Beer, Imagined in India, with the effect of
unleashing your innerself –that fun, friendly, smart & slightly
odd creature that is inside all of us. The aim was to fill the gap in
the market for a trendy, unorthodox, fun and smart brand of beer
that could be positioned between Indian brands and the
expensive imported beers. The focus was on taste and
experience in a market that is dominated by strong beers,” says
Jain.

5. 3)MARKET TRENDS:
“What is great beer made of? Yes, the most pristine, earthy
water, the sturdiest & choicest malted barley & wheat, flavored
with a blast from the most delicate hops and restless, manic
yeast. But also the secret ingredients of spirit, mystery,
mythology, passion, and a turbulent chaos, full of vitality and
energy. And, India has these secret ingredients in
abundance”says Jain. Bira 91 is a craft beer, the first that has
been conceived of by an Indian company. The big difference in
Bira 91 White comes when the libation first touches the tongue.
It is sweeter and markedly more acerbic, or citrusy, than the
normal beer. The bigger surprise is in the lack of bitterness that
usually marks beer.
4)MARKET GROWTH:Formally introduced in February, Bira
91 (the number stands for India’s country code) has already
become a household brand among beer lovers in the capital and
in Bengaluru.
Bira 91 White (a low-bitterness wheat beer, as the company
website describes it) and Bira 91 Blonde (an extra hoppy craft
lager) are available in draft and bottle formats at 150 retail stores
in Delhi and almost 70 retail outlets in Bengaluru.
There was no marketing, no campaign.It was made available in a
few pubs such as Beer Café, Monkey Bar, Raasta, Pint Room
and Barsoom. People tasted it, liked it and it has gone viral.The
beer sells 10,000 cases a month in Delhi alone. the response to
Bira 91 has encouraged Jain to sell the beer in eight other cities

6. in the next 12 months. In July, Cerana will be taking the flagship
brew to Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata, Jain said. Bira evoked a
phenomenal response. The feedback had been excellent from
people.
Jain spent the first couple of years after returning to India on
understanding the beer market, including undertaking a three-
month road trip across Europe to identify beer brands that suit
the Indian palate.The trip included countless pub crawls and
visits to breweries and even expensive restaurants that served
exotic beers.When he returned home and set up Cerana
Beverages, the company started by importing beers that only
connoisseurs were familiar with.
By 2013, Jain was ready to launch his own brand.He reached out
to his friends from college and collected $1 million from half a
dozen of them. A brewmaster from Belgium was hired as a
consultant.
Around 280 million cases of beer were sold in India in 2014, of
which about 85% was strong beer. Only 20 million cases of
premium beer are sold in the country.
5)COMPETITION:
It is a mild variety of beer, much milder (with alcohol content
below 5%) than other beers in the Indian market dominated by
strong beers including Kingfisher, Kalyani Black Label,
Carlsberg Elephant, Budweiser Magnum and Miller ACE.

7. MARKETING STRATEGY:
1)MISSION:
Jain’s target is to reach sales of one million cases a year by the
end of 2015 (up from 10,000 cases a month in the Delhi market
now), his ambition fuelled by the response to Bira 91 in Delhi
and Bengaluru.
2)MARKETING OBJECTIVE:
The growth has been fast, much faster than the company could
have imagined. The aim now is to be among the top three in
every market that we will be present in by the end of this year.
The company wants to continue with the two variants and add
one more by the end of the year and eventually brew the beer in
India. To scale up,the company has decided to lower prices from
Rs.150 a pint to Rs.100 over the next few month.
FINANCIAL OBJECTIVES:
If price isn’t a barrier to growth, why does the company plan to
lower it? The company could have worked out a lower price.
But taxation is something that they can’t control.Tax for beer
differs from state to state, ranging from 25% in Goa to 65% in
Maharashtra.

8. Cerana Beverages now generates $1.5 million a month—about
95% from Bira 91 and the remaining from imports of other
brands.
To scale up. Jain is in talks with private equity investors and
venture capitalists for $10 million in Series A funding, which is
expected to be closed in the next couple of months. “This would
be deployed over the next 12 months from the time the company
raises the funds.
MARKETING PROGRAM(THE 4 P’s):
1)PRICE: The company has placed its price equally to all its
competitors.Since the company is new and emerging,it has
decided to lower prices of its beer from Rs.150 a pint to Rs.100
over the next few months.
2) PROMOTION: There was no marketing, no campaign.It was
made available in a few pubs such as Beer Café, Monkey Bar,
Raasta, Pint Room and Barsoom. People tasted it, liked it and it
has gone viral. Response to Bira 91 had encouraged Jain to sell
the beer and its promotion was done by social networking sites
like facebook,twitter.
3)PRODUCT: Bira 91 White (a low-bitterness wheat beer, as
the company website describes it) and Bira 91 Blonde (an extra
hoppy craft lager) are available in draft and bottle formats. It is a
mild variety of beer, much milder (with alcohol content below
5%) than other beers in the Indian market. The focus was on
taste and experience in a market that is dominated by strong
beers.

9. 4)PLACE: It has exclusive import and marketing rights in the
subcontinent from seven breweries and has an established
presence in India and the South Asian sub-continent, with sales,
marketing and distribution network in the all major urban
centres in India.It is sold inDelhiat 150 retail stores and almost
70 retail outlets in Bengaluru & eight other cities in the next 12
months includingMumbai,Pune and Kolkata.
FINANCIALS: It is looking for investors to help fund
expansion, A reprint of the article "Cerana Beverages aims to
raise US$10m for Bira 91 roll-out" by James Wilmore, which
appeared in the online resource' January 5, 2015 issue, is
presented.Cerana Beverages had first raised an undisclosed
amount in a seed round of funding from a group of investors,
including angel investors and executives from top private equity
and technology firms from the US, Europe and Singapore, to
fund its expansion plans in India. It raised additional money
from angel investor Apurva Salarpuria soon thereafter.
Salarpuria, one of the founding members of Calcutta Angels, is
the first India-based investor for the company. He hails from the
privately held Salarpuria Group, whose primary business interest
is real estate development and is active in Bangalore, Pune,
Kolkata and Hyderabad.It is not clear which of the existing
angel investors put in more in the new bridge round.

10. CONTROLS:The following areas will be monitored very
closely by Cerana Beverages' Bira 91 management:
a)Revenues & Expenses.
b)Monitor weekly inventory turnover.
c)Customers/Consumers feedback.
d)New customers acquired.
e)New program developed.
f)Customer retention/repeat participation rate.
g)Set bar stock par level.
h)Competitor price survey.