Of Swiss chocolate bars, sinigang cubes and Russian vodka

If you could market Toblerone successfully in a foreign land whose ways were new to you, and, back home, convince your foreign boss that a previously unheard of broth cube would be a hit to Filipinos, you must be the template of a good marketing man.

Self-effacing Beam Global Philippines president and GM Joey Mendoza will probably object to that, but fact is he has studied his craft and his markets so well over the years he’ll probably not balk at marketing trips to the moon one day.

If that’s what the market wants, that is.

I got a chance to pick the marketing guru’s brains one afternoon over brewed coffee — not Russian Standard Premium Vodka, which he is building up these days — and asked him tips on marketing to an already saturated audience.

“Number one, common sense,” says Joey, who is married to former Bb. Pilipinas Marilen Espino. (He claims she was attracted to him because of his simplicity but I think Joey, who is tall and goodlooking, was able to honestly “market” his best traits to Marilen.)

“I’ve known lots of desk marketing people who dictate how consumers should consume the brand. It should be the other way around. They should go out to the field and see what consumers are doing,” continues Joey. “You should not impose your will on consumers. It’s what the consumers want, not what you want. A lot of marketers always fall into that trap. They create award-winning advertising, they create a nice campaign. But that doesn’t address the consumer’s needs. It addresses their (the marketers’) needs. Second, focus. Focus is all about what do you want from the brand. You want to make it number 1, or do you just want to expose it? Or you just want to have it in your portfolio?”

One of the challenges of Joey’s career was when he was in charge of marketing Toblerone in Saudi Arabia. The offer was good but the main reason he took it was it gave him the means to pay for his mother Evangeline’s heart-bypass operation. At that time, it cost the family P2.5 million.

His stint in the Middle East broadened his horizons and, “it opened my eyes about being independent, about how is life. Now I understand what’s happening, I can look back and say, I think I understand why they’re doing that. Why people are doing such things.”

After three years, Joey returned to the Philippines, where no job awaited him. He was just grateful he was able to improve the quality of life of his mother.

After a period of rest, he joined Allied Domeq, distributors of Fundador brandy and made sales history. “We achieved a lot of milestones,” recalls Joey. “We achieved the highest sales of Fundador, highest market share of Fundador, we made the company number 1 in the Philippines.”

Differences in marketing strategy with his boss made him leave the company, but the parting was amicable. His former boss and Joey remain friends, and this he attributes to his being able to detach work from emotions. “I say what I feel, in a very professional way. I’m not so emotional. I prefer facts and figures. At the end of the day, when I leave the room, I’m with the team.”

Challenged by developing new businesses, Joey also once plunged into sinigang broth — selling it, that is, and in the form of bouillon cubes. He took the big boss of marketing of Nestle and brought him to a public market. “This is how we cook sinigang,” he explained the tedious process of preparing the staple Filipino viand. “With bouillon cubes, we were able to convince our customers that they didn’t have to buy all the ingredients (one by one).”

The bouillon cube was a hit, and was a virtual gold bouillon for the Swiss company.

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Joey is now with Beam Global, and the company’s portfolio includes Fundador and Russian Standard, which Joey says is the number one vodka in Russia and the United Kingdom and is the second fastest-growing spirits brand in the world.

Because Pinoys are brandy drinkers (while the Thais are whisky drinkers and the Vietnamese prefer cognac, according to Joey), Beam Global imports more bottles of Fundador than all other bottles of all other drinks combined.

“I would say we would get more than, between 55 to 60 percent of the imported spirits market here in the Philippines,” declares Joey. With such success in the brandy market, why is he bringing vodka into the picture, and during economically challenging times at that?

“Because not all Filipinos would like brandy every day,” he points out.

While brandy drinkers are men, the vodka market is split evenly between men and women and is a much younger market.

Joey, a weekend farmer (he and his wife grow the rice that they consume at home), says that moderate amounts of alcohol help people unwind and relax. “We just say drink responsibly.”

“There’s an interesting fact here in the Philippines,” reveals Joey. “The greater majority of our sales, even our competitors’, are purchased off-premise. What does it mean? A lot of people buy in the wine shops, supermarkets and drink at home, which curbs DUI (Driving Under the Influence) incidents.”

At the end of the day, whatever it is he is selling, Joey Mendoza goes after the consumer’s own heart. If he can’t sell him a trip to the moon, he’ll sell him a piece of heaven instead — a yummy Swiss chocolate bar, a tasty Pinoy bouillon cube or a glass of ice-cold Russian vodka.

 (You may e-mail me at [email protected])