NGO questions gin market study

One of the biggest Luzon-based consumer groups recently said the study released by Tanduay Distillers, Inc. (TDI) on the gin market "could be misleading since it does not disprove the primary issue of market confusion."

The Isabela-based Timpuyog Mannalon Amianan said TDI’s study "does not alleviate our fear that most gin drinkers mistake TDI’s Ginebra Kapitan for a Ginebra San Miguel product."

Consumer activist Melany Victoria, group spokesperson, said "the issue is not whether or not we can distinguish the two products but that many of us are misled into thinking that the new market entrant is also a product of GSMI."

She said it is important that his particular confusion over who the maker of Kapitan is be addressed immediately since "there are many consumers who base their purchase decision on who the manufacturer is."

Victoria earlier lamented the apparent confusion among gin drinkers following the release by GSMI of an extensive market research done by leading Filipino consumer pulse expert Mercedes Abad. Abad said almost all of the 300 respondents mistakenly believed that TDI’s Kapitan is also a product of GSMI, San Miguel or La Tondeña.

The research also allegedly showed that most gin drinkers associate the word "Ginebra" with GSMI, San Miguel, La Tondeña and the products of these companies. The market confusion triggered the P100 million suit filed by GMSI against TDI for trademark infringement and unfair competition.

GSMI also recently lamented the "free ride" TDI is enjoying, saying it can forego "with the need to invest millions of pesos of its own in marketing and advertising Ginebra Kapitan precisely because it carries GSMI’s popular "Ginebra" name.

TDI had publicly acknowledged that GSMI has already spent some P178.2 million from January to July of this year to advertise the original Ginebra San Miguel while it has spent only P2.6 million during the same period to promote Ginebra Kapitan.

Victoria urged TDI "to come up with a responsive market study that would once and for all prove that Ginebra Kapitan is not being mistaken for a GSMI product."