AB InBev Bashing Craft?

Speaking as a 35 year+ marketing and advertising professional, I think this is one of the smarter strategies they could take. Nothing is going to change their position as a huge brewer of mass market beer. So, instead of running away from it, they've chosen to own it. The message is, "we're not ashamed of the products we sell and we sell a shit-ton of it and we're not going to stand by and let snooty craft snobs look down their noses at our customers. I don't know about you, but if a brand I like comes out swinging on my behalf, I think I might just like that all the more.

I've read a few comments here about how this might help galvanize their base, but it won't win them new customers. First, if that's what this accomplishes, they'll be over the moon. If they can stop losing customers to craft by making it seem inauthentic to drink craft, they're golden. Secondly, they're really not playing in the same pool as craft. They're really looking to win market share from Miller-Coors. And if they come across as the brand that makes people feel good about drinking "macro" beers instead of feeling inferior to all the beer geeks, then I'm not sure this won't win them new customers.

Bottom line -- I think this is a very smart move on their part.

 

"There is a large contingent of beer drinkers that are AAL only. These are the million and millions of folks who send a lot of money to the BMC companies."

Cheers!

 

Nobody said there wasn't.

Cheers!

 

Good point.

 

Excellent post!

The primary purposed of BMC advertising is to ‘remind’ the AAL beer drinkers of their particular beer brands with the hope that when they go to their beer retailers they will purchase their beer brand vs. their competitors.

Since you are a Marketing & Sales professional, how does MillerCoors ‘rationalize’ their ad campaigns? When they advertise Miller Lite there is chance they a beer consumer will buy Miller Lite vs. Coors Light for their next beer purchase. In other words does Miller (or Coors) advertising cannibalize sales for their other branch brands?

Cheers!

 

If I remember correctly (don't have a chance to look it up right now), a lot of the decline in market share is coming, not from craft beer, but from non-beer alcoholic beverages. Spirits and wine. But that doesn't take away from this excellent point:

I think they'd love to convert some craft drinkers over to their products, but I think they probably recognize that as wholly unrealistic. However, converting some MillerCoors drinkers over to Bud is entirely in play. It's been largely ignored in this thread that there is a difference between a BMC loyalist (one who only drinks fizzy yellow lagers) and a consumer who is loyal to a specific brand within the BMC product group.

It makes far more sense that ABInBev would be able to win consumers over from MillerCoors than from [insert craft brewery].

But I still think the biggest threat facing their industry (and by extension craft beer) is the increase of interest in non-beer alcoholic beverages.

 

Yeah, c'mon was that really necessary?!

 

You are remembering correctly.

One of the guidelines that a marketing pro once suggested to me is, the less difference there is between different competing products, the more advertising there will be.

This leads me to suspect that the Bud folks need a new marketing agency because that's all they seem to be geared up recognize and respond to, i.e., do better than Miller/Coors.

There has been very little I've seen that seems targeted to giving 20 somethings reasons to prefer beer to wine and boomers reasons to prefer beer to malt whisky.

But then they may not feel they can do that until they have a bigger footprint in the world of flavorful beer.

 

Their commercials making fun of craft drinkers obviously aren’t intended for their Goose Island/Blue Point customers. Segmentation is at the heart of marketing. If they want to advertise for GI/BP, they’ll run separate commercials/ads/etc.

 

They make a shitty product...then buy up other companies to make the "good stuff". The average bud drinker probably thinks their "macro" ads are awesome...so bud has done it's job in the marketing dept. For me...I just ridicule more because I find their ads pathetic...their products pathetic...and will NEVER spend a dime on any product produced, owned (in part of in full), or controlled by InBev. Keep spending that money on ads...because clearly you don't spend it making bud anything more than what it is...a piss-poor tasting, mass-produced adjunct lowest common-denominator lager.

I do wish that their macro ads had to include the fact that they own GI, Blue Point, 10 Barrel etc...so people could see hypocrisy at it's finest.

 

Don't throw us 50-70 year olds under the bus quite yet you young whipper snapper you! (Shakes fist derisively akin to get off my lawn). In case you haven't noticed there is a sizeable portion of us old coots on here who happen to relish good beer. I was actually in my early 40's when I was enlightened and I am 55 now. I have a dad who is going to be 80 that drinks Dogfish Head and Jai Alai like its going out of style (pardon the pun). And here in the craft scene, I see a lot of 20-30 year olds that drink craft for the high ABV and really have no idea about the quality and craftsmanship that goes into good beer not to mention all the young ones I see at football and baseball games still throwing back BMC swill. I guess you can say there are unenlightened folks in all age groups. Just don't chuck us oldsters so quickly. You might be surprised how many there are who dig good beer.

 

Do you mean stuff like Not Your Fathers Root Beer!

 

Hah! Or Henry's Hard sodas, or the proliferation of Craft Cider and canned meads (!), even?

 

AB InBev are a little lost when marketing Budweiser. It's like they're trolling 24/7

They make fun of craft, yet in the same breath boast "beechwood aged" and "brewed the hard way".

In all honesty, I think they just don't have a clue what they're doing in that respect. They want to bash "craft" yet do it in a contradictory manner.

 

that was interesting, I wonder if this Dan guy wrote the Coors ad more people around here still remember (vs the Pete Coors one).

I'm talking about "It's no downstream beer..."

 

Im not gonna bother reading all of these replies. What I can tell you is that 99% of people that buy Kona brewing beer think that it is brewed in Hawaii. Budweiser does not advertise the purchase of breweries so the non beer geek does not know the difference of an AB owned craft brewery over a non AB owned craft brewery. So it really dosnt matter if they bash craft drinkers because the "craft drinkers" that drink AB craft beer have no idea it is brewed by AB.

 

But look at sales and share valuation of CBA. They're not doing well. Kona and Red Hook are hurting most.

 

You are in for a bit of a surpise given that one employee owned brewery has already been bought. (Apparently the employee owners jumped at the chance... :-))

Also Kona is not owned by ABInBev. Its owned by the CBA and Bud has a less than 35% ownership of that company. So nobody needs to find out what isn't correct.

 

While an employee owned company certainly can sell, there is less pressure of the " I am about to retire and my kids don't want to brew" kind.

On that note, I think I read that one Busch family descendant is running a craft brewery in St Louis.

 

I think those commercials are well done and amusing for the most part. I know a lot of craft drinkers and a lot of macro drinkers. Generally speaking, the macro drinkers I know are way more fun to hang out with. I think that's why those ads hit home for me. People who already drink craft are not suddenly going to switch to Bud, that's why they don't worry about any negative impact on Goose Island. However it does give current BMC drinkers the image that their looking for. I think it's a pretty smart and effective campaign from that standpoint.