Ursus Pils Is Back, as Green as Always.

It’s official, Ursus Pils, or, as it was once called, “green” Ursus is back. But why did it “leave” many years ago!? I never found a 100% plausible explanation.

I remember the time when I was still working for Ursus on the eternal debate on Pils’ delisting from the Ursus Breweries portfolio, with many pro and con opinions. The main strategic reason given by the company at the time was that Pils “eats” from the market share and image of Ursus Premium, not letting it be premium enough, next to a “green” beer, which is popular and cheaper, but which still brought in lots of money, very significant sums even. Subsequently, the company diversified its portfolio on the economy and mainstream segments with the help of Ciucaș and Timișoreana, with major investments made in procurement, marketing and advertising, thus replacing Ursus Pils. I would say successfully.

The debates on the Pils delisting were really stormy and long, the decision to eliminate the assortment was made a few years after the initiation. It was difficult, however, to decide to eliminate a product that had been making so much money for Ursus since its launch. There were interesting times, there were times when the beer market was not as well-established as it is now and there were double-digit annual percentage increases. I called those times the “beer wars”, as I was a participant who was involved in these matters day after day for a few years.

My position at that time, when it came to the debates on the subject, was unchanged: do not delist Pils, it is popular, it is profitable, it has a different taste and it is already part of the popular folklore, especially the regional folklore of Cluj and of its surroundings. Pils was the beer that both those with lower incomes and those with incomes that would have allowed them to turn to something more expensive, premium beers, were happy to consume. Contrary to many market studies that showed that Pils was considered a cheap alternative to Premium, therefore the question “why buy Premium?”, Ursus Premium was still sold in very large quantities to a very well defined and faithful segment, just like Pils. Each had its own segment of consumers, but there was indeed a group migrating from one to another, an area of intersection on the segmentation map.

And yet, Ursus Pils returned to the market after a very long break. Well done, I’m good at sensing these things.