Mighty Corp willing to reveal their marketing secrets

Mighty Corp. said Wednesday it is willing to reveal its trade secret on how it captured a large share of the low-end cigarette market if its foreign competitor stops bullying them and monopolizing the market.

“We’ve eaten their market because their people have not been working and that their down-the-line distribution is gone,” said MC executive vice president Oscar Barrientos, referring to Philip Morris-Fortune Tobacco Corp.

“Gone is the key word,” he said, “because while MC anticipated the possible effects of the Sin Tax Law and drew up its own strategy, its giant competitor relied mostly on its traditional marketing style of pushing premium and sub-premium brands and invariably neglected equally promoting its joint-venture partner Fortune Tobacco’s six different brands of P1 per stick cigarettes and, thus, many of its country-wide network also switched, largely for economic reason, to MC’s sales force which continued to expand.”

“You see it’s not only consumers shifting from premium and sub-premium brands which PMFTC dominated for many years but also some of their salesmen and other cigarette vendors to MC network now selling our products which admittedly are more tasty, smooth and aromatic,” the MC executive said, adding that in addition “we have an efficient workforce, no foreign obligations and most of all the ability to apply the knowledge and wisdom of comparative and managerial economics.”

“Not really so much on knowledge though because it’s practically unlimited. What is important is wisdom because it gives you the ability to perceive what is important and what is not in the crucial three stages of business operations which are sourcing of cheap but quality raw materials, manufacturing and marketing of products,” Barrientos said.

MC’s excise tax payments to the government increased 1,677 percent to P8.2 billion in just one year as against PMFTC’s only 110-percent increase for the same period after the effective implementation of the 2012 Sin Tax Law.

MC’s excise tax payment the previous year was more than P500 million.

MC’s shares in the market increased to more than 20 percent from a measly 3 percent as a result of the successful implementation the Sin Tax Law that saw the field leveled between local cigarette producers and PMFTC, which controlled 94 percent of the premium, sub-premium and low-priced brands.

“We are happy with the result of our intelligence research and business war-games which we had at the advent of the Sin Tax Law,” he said, adding that: “we had anticipated the advantages of the tax measure, prognosticating at the same that there was going to be a major shift in the smoking preferences of the majority of the Filipino consumers, either migrate to low-cost brand or entirely quit the vice or reduce the frequency of smoking for economic and health reasons.”