Benue Investment and Property Company used Saturday’s UEFA Champions League final between Arsenal and PSG as a consumer activation for Zeva Premium Lager Beer, staging a watch party at Sese Park in Makurdi and positioning the event as the brand’s first significant public outing since its December 2024 launch.
BIPC Group Managing Director Dr. Raymond Asemakaha told journalists at the event that Zeva plans to run advertising during the FIFA World Cup, which opens June 11 across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. No broadcast deal or confirmed placement was announced. The claim is an aspiration, not a contracted media buy, and Asemakaha offered no timeline, channel, or market specification.
“When China was in difficulties, they did what they called the inclusive economy. I want to ask the people of Benue to embrace this lager. The money is going to return here.” , Dr. Raymond Asemakaha, Group Managing Director, BIPC
The watch party served a clearer purpose: put Zeva in front of a captive, engaged audience and test whether the product can hold a room. BIPC also distributed malt samples to non-alcohol drinkers, signalling the company intends to run both the lager and its malt variant in parallel activations.
The stakes in Benue’s beer market are not trivial. Asemakaha has previously cited monthly beer consumption in the state at over ₦1 billion, historically captured almost entirely by external brands. Zeva, operating initially under contract brewing before the permanent Food Basket Brewery facility came online in 2025, is targeting a market that established national labels have served through mature distribution networks for decades.
Drinkabl.media’s earlier coverage of Nigerian Breweries and Guinness Nigeria’s March price increases traced the same cost pressures Zeva will face on the supply side: energy costs, imported input exposure, and a distribution infrastructure that still price-adjusts to absorb macro volatility. A regional lager entering that environment has brand goodwill on its side. The trade margin arithmetic is a different question. For context on how established brands are running consumer campaigns this season, Maltina‘s multi-city gifting push this week illustrates the scale of activation investment a national brand deploys to sustain secondary market penetration.
Asemakaha’s pitch to Benue consumers was direct: “When China was in difficulties, they did what they called the inclusive economy. I want to ask the people of Benue to embrace this lager. The money is going to return here.” Localised buy-local messaging is a legitimate activation strategy, but it sustains volume only if retail availability and pricing hold. That test plays out in distribution, not at a watch party.
The Food Basket Brewery, located along the Makurdi-Gboko Road, represents a capital commitment of between ₦10 billion and ₦15 billion according to BIPC. Whether Zeva secures genuine broadcast presence during the World Cup or not, the activation calendar suggests the company is accelerating its brand-building effort ahead of full production scale. The harder question is how far sports sponsorship carries a regional brand into statewide retail depth before an established competitor recalibrates its own pricing in response.
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