Cheap Vodka conquers Africa

We all know that a nice shot of Vodka can soften any miserable situation in your life for a while. That is correct – as long as you do not choose “Naga Chili Vodka” as your main consoling agent. Some cheap Vodka brands would do for most people. Maybe the mainstream people in South Africa or Kenya find no other acceptable “comforter”. The “East African Breweries Limited” began to develop a cheap Vodka brand for the South African and African market. It is amazing to scan the influences a relatively tasteless alcoholic drink like Vodka can have on any society. I think cheap Vodka can be understood as the blunt and direct way to harmonize a growing dissatisfaction in a given society. The mistake in the thought-system is that alcohol seldom cares for more and lasting satisfaction. In most cases and statistics, cheap alcohol cares for more alcoholics and more aggression. Only at the surface of any analysis and in biased press declarations it seems to be otherwise. And in Africa, as you will see.

Reaching out for the low-income consumers

The “East African Breweries” are doubtlessly out for more profit. The dwindeling sales of their most successful beer brand in Africa managed to produce the vision of a cheap Vodka brand that would raise the profits of the producer. At the same time it would conveniently lower the sufferings of the common people – and very effectively too. This is what good politics are all about, right? To make this new Vodka brand affordable for everyone, the South African beer brewery fills small quarter bottles with their new cheap “Chrome Vodka”. The low pricing of the new Vodka-brand is challenging the rivals of the “East African Breweries”. “Chrome Vodka” seeks to be the new alcoholic milestone in a program full of increasingly non-successful spirits on beer basis. The new Vodka wants to compete with the cheap alcoholic products of the “Kenya Wine Agencies” or the “London Distillers”.

 

New strategies are needed

In a recent edition of “Business Daily” in May 2015, EABL’s managing director, mister Charles Ireland, claimed that a rising demand for hard spirits influenced the brewery’s decision to create a new product-line. The “mainstream” is obviously not willing to be cut off of everything. I guess we mostly talk about the mainstream people in South Africa and in capital cities of other African nations. For those Africans who lack food and water or acceptable housing, “Chrome Vodka” would hardly be very consolatory. The managers of the “East African Breweries” expressed the need to think “more aggressively” about ways to raise their profits after the sales of their best-selling beer brands dropped dramatically due to raised taxes. The starting point of the new distillery-campaign was in 2013, when the brewery announced the launch of a new alcoholic drink named “Jebel Gold” for low-income consumers. The product aimed at people who consumed illicit homemade alcohol in exchange of beer.

Counteract illegal spirits

We talk about the Kenyan “Changaa” or “Chang’aa” spirits, which translate into “kill me quick”. These illegal alcoholics are distilled from maize, millet or sorghum. They are extremely strong. The sales are controlled by criminal gangs. Toxic additives of “Changaa” can be battery acid, jet fuel or embalming fluid. You find the victims of this drink in African slums. Under new laws, Kenyas government tried to get hold of this practice. Kenya installed prohibiting regulations and warning signs on the Changaa-bottles. The logic step for the “East African Breweries” was to place “Senator Dark Extra Beer” with higher alcoholic content and lower price in the most important points of sale. This strategic step was followed by a new Vodka brand. Opium for the people, right? Well, the available alcoholic drugs should better be non-toxic.

Mainstream spirit for maximum profit

I assume that cheap Vodka does not convince with great taste. If anyone is in need of tricks to make a cheap Vodka more palpable, he will find some right here in my magazine. However, “Chrome Vodka” wants the African mainstream people to stop drinking their illegal home-brewn spirits. This strategy is partly about health concerns, maybe also about softening the after-effects of poverty or “Apartheid”. Most of all it is a marketing strategy of a beer brewer in trouble. What’s the profit for the mainstream people? Well, maybe some less will die from strong home-brewn spirits and criminal gangfights. Some more will learn what Vodka can do for their lives. Some mainstream people “under the influence” may strive to drink some better Vodkas in the long run – and some of the some might even become Vodka experts, just like me. Wow, if that is no perspective, what else is? A newly emerging Vodka brand might revolutionize African lifestyle.