Undercover Boss: Molson Coors

As they still have an enormous market share of brand-loyal customers, changing their recipe to be "tastier" to the 5% of customers who have already left is immensely dangerous from a business standpoint. Remember when Coke tried to change their recipe? Huge misstep.

Plus, I've never quite believed that the people behind BMC see their beer as inferior. Aside from the story of Busch not drinking his own beer, I picture most people working for BMC to be big fans and consumer of their own product. I may be delusional....

 

I have an emotional connection with these beers. I had a lot of great times in college with them. That doesn't mean shit considering last night I tried a sip of Coors Light for the first time in a long time and I almost gagged. I feel bad for the person who buys beer based on emotional connections instead of taste, or any food or beverage for that matter. If you like the taste of it, ok, but if you like the taste of craft and buy Bud bc you see some dumb commercial that has nothing to do with the beer, I feel sorry for you. Every time I see one of their new commercials on TV, all I think is "that has nothing to do with me and nothing to do with the actual product, what are they thinking?"

 

I'd say that the creation of "Tenth and Blake" as a separate division (with breweries/brands like Leinenkugel, Blue Moon, Terrapin and Pilsner Urquell under it's umbrella) suggests that in the US MillerCoors (MolsonCoors' US joint-venture with SABMiller) that they are focused more than 1% on the craft/specialty segment.

 

I'm pretty sure I saw something like that on tap the other night. It was called something like "Batch 19" and it was made by Coors. It was supposed to be a pre-prohibition brew. I didn't try it as there was SN Ruthless Rye on the tap next to it.

 

And that's a good thing even though I never had Batch 19. We don't get it in my area. I wouldn't mind seeing it in this area with more advertising behind it nationally.

 

What about Sierra Nevada and Anchor? I believe both of those breweries are in every state.

 

I think he meant "popular" in terms of "hype" not sales.

 

preference. (Sorry about that, but you did it twice and its driving me crazy)

Actually, it can be stated as a fact. Using, say, BA ratings of beers. That shows preference in a factual manner.

 

Problem with this is that there isnt a 94% that drink AAL and 6% drink craft.

About 50% drink both. They splurge and have a craft beer 1-2 times per month while out and drink AAL the rest of the time.

I saw it at a Derby party last weekend. I bring homebrew to it every year. There is always a keg of some light beer too (Miller Lite this year). A number of the guests alternate taps all day long. The funny thing was, I brought a 3.5% ABV Mild this year, so I had the lighter beer (abv wise, by my calculation, about breakeven on calories).

 

When they first started Blue Moon, I wondered how it would boom if they advertised it as hard as they did Coors Light. Since they started advertising it hard, guess what, it has boomed. Why it took them so long to figure this out is beyond me.

 

I agree with this. I mean sure the big guys are losing market share to craft brewers. But they are probably losing as much, if not more to people drinking more wine or hard liquor, or people just drinking less either for health (weight loss) or financial reasons. I mean if money is tight for a lot of people, one easy thing to cut is going out to restaurants or bars and having a drink. I get the sense that those kinds of cuts are going to hurt the big brewers more than little guys.

Plus as for why coors doens't try making new more flavourful products? I get the sense that they are so big that things like improving plant safety or maybe increasing efficiency (like beer produced per shift) company wide probably has a bigger effect on overall profitability than launching a new product that actually competes with craft beers. Especially since doing those things doesn't have the same risk attached that launching a new product would, especially one that could cost a ton of money to develop and market and then could just as easily fail (especially in the eyes of shareholders, who just want to make sure they get a good return).

 

I guess you'll have to take that up with the poster- he claimed he bases popularity on "taste" (?).

 

If taste == ranking on BA, then I think that goes along well with "hype". But yeah, not how I would use the word popularity, but I think I knew what he meant (although Im not sure he does).

 

I don't care how many opinions you get, they don't all combine forces to make a "fact".

 

The numerical ranking is a fact. Whether it is right is an entirely different beast.

 

No, that numerical ranking is an average of numbers based on personal preferences. That's a far-cry from a FACT.

 

That is exactly what a fact is.

FACT: The average rating of a bunch of people's personal preferences for Heady Topper (chosen basically at random from the top beers) is 4.61.

FACT: Its ranking, under the "Top Beers - Popular" criteria is 4.

I dont see how you can say that those arent facts.

 

I really don't understand the antipathy to Sam Adams. They make fantastic beers that are very true to style, and they are available pretty much everywhere. Rating Sam Adams poorly, or dismissing them, simply because they sell a lot of beer is utter stupidity.