Charming the trade
The last time I saw Adrian McKeon he got stung for forty quid. The details are not important but let's just say he'll never offer to buy anyone a drink in the bar of the Dorchester Hotel again.
That was two years ago. A lot has happened since. At the time he was managing director of Beam Global UK. Formed following the break-up of Allied Domecq, Beam had acquired an impressive portfolio of spirits brands and was set on a major assault on the UK market.
Within six months Adrian had left. It wasn't exactly mission accomplished at Beam - as he would admit himself - but he'd had a job offer that was too good to turn down.
"It was a fantastic project at Beam and I really enjoyed it. But when I got the phone call and had the opportunity to work with a brand as iconic as Cobra and the chance to work for a guy like Karan Bilimoria it was too good an opportunity to turn down," he says. "And six months down the line it has proven to be exactly the right choice. It is a fantastic place to work."
Biding his time
His first six months as chief executive of the beer company have been measured, however. He has not marched into the on-trade making pronouncements about Cobra's plans. In fact, McKeon has hardly been seen at all.
He has been biding his time, building a strategy and, most interestingly, cherry picking the best on-trade team he can find, from his old team at Beam and from the world of soft drinks.
"The development of the strategy demonstrates how we do business. In the first two weeks I met with all 300 employees in the UK and in India. When you ask people who work at the coal face of an organisation they tend to know the answers - they know the solutions to your problems," he says.
"Based on our discussion we carried out a strategic review. We made a decision that the UK and Indian markets would be key - as opposed to having a wide focus on all markets."For a newcomer to the beer industry McKeon certainly speaks with a huge degree of passion. No doubt some of his boss's legendary drive and enthusiasm has rubbed off on him - his boss, of course, being Karan Bilimoria, the man who started the Cobra beer business in 1989.
And the new team is putting its money where its mouth is - with plans to spend £14m on the brand in the UK this year alone and to get the product into 20,000 outlets (17,000 in packaged and 3,000 on draught.)
It is ambitious plans like this that have undoubtedly attracted people of the calibre of Arran Heal (formerly of Coca-Cola), Will Ghali (from Pepsico) and Nick Paget (from Beam) into the business.
Why now?
To be frank, McKeon and Bilimoria must have done a pretty good sales job on their new recruits because any look at the industry will tell you this is not the greatest time to be joining a premium lager brewer.
Sales nationwide in the on-trade are down 10 per cent year-on-year and major brands such as Grolsch and Stella Artois are suffering.
So why is Cobra setting itself such tough targets and committing so much investment to the on-trade? McKeon says the pub market is the only place to be.
"The UK on-trade is very exciting. No matter what anyone says, two-thirds of beer sold in the UK is done in the pub. It's an exciting prospect to try and get an Indian beer to break through," he explains. "The only really healthy sector of the lager market is what we call world beers and that is growing by six per cent.
"If you couple this with the fact that the consumer is looking for something different then what we need to do is give them a reason to buy Cobra in a bar - as a pint outside of the Indian restaurant occasion. That, in a nutshell, is the major plank of our strategy."
So the question is can Cobra convince drinkers that the brand is more than just a beer to enjoy with an Indian meal? Is it a pint that customers might have two of on their way home from work? Can the new team convince drinkers to choose Cobra over the premium world beers enjoying success right now - the likes of Peroni and Staropramen?
The real question is that, when it comes to pubs, does Cobra have any bite?
