What Do the Big Guys Not Understand??

the only marketing i need is for a beer i want to actually be distributed to my area! luckily, i have a ton of excellent local options, which means way more to me than million dollar ad campaigns or someone trying to "cater" to things i love about beer. good beer is sought after....bad beer needs to be marketed.

 

Marketing has put many big corporations where they are today.
They pay millions for this stuff, and know what they are doing.
Will it get them customers? Without a doubt.
Will it sway serious craft beer drinkers? Not likely.
They are not interested in making better beer.
They are interested in making more money.

 

I'm not sure which is more crass: Bud's new marketing plan or the tone of that article. Boiling it down to generational stereotypes does disservice to the issue.

 

Wether we enjoy BMC or not, it pays the bills for many small businesses. Their huge marketing budget keeps the lights on for many people.

 

So do all the good small brewers.

 

very true but I would rather spend my money supporting american small business owners(craft brewers) and drinking superior beer. The thousands of small breweries in america are keeping a lot of lights on too they just don't need to advertise, their beer does the talking

 

People want to feel special in all of their consumer choices these days. Budweiser is the Wonder Bread of beer.

 

i don't drink or like budweiser, but i also disagree with this. that beer is the epitome of the style in which it sits - it pretty much cannot nor need not get better. i simply dislike that style and will never seek it out.

 

I don't see what the issue is with an umbrella system. It may just be inevitable; a snowball effect which they kind-of started. This is in regards to the selling and distribution of beer in the United States. If it keeps going in the direction that it's headed, Budweiser and BudLite will remain alive as a product but not as billboarded as they once were. Instead, like the industry of spirits, the corporation itself will encourage what sells, the breweries will just be under an agreement with Anheuser, Miller or Coors for full-access distribution, not only nationwide but where it takes, internationally. Slices of a pie. When you have old money, it's like sitting at the top of a mountain and watching a car drive all the way up; you have a lot of time to foretell and see what's going to happen. I imagine there are a couple of marketing agents for this company, on here. We're feeding the source.

 

It's funny how writers never mention the real reason that sales of Budweiser are down. That reason is Bud-Lite.

 

That's a very big part of it, no doubt. And I do think the big guys have gotten it, at least up until the past few years- their customers have been making it clear their preference for Lite beers for a while now.

 

Budweiser markets a wide variety of different brands and styles (including Goose Island, just to mention the brewer of one of my favorite beers of all time, BCBS)

Truth be told, if Budweiser made a decent IPA or Stout, I'd drink it. The vast majority of the time I don't discriminate against where the beer comes from, only the taste. If Lagunitas made an average IPA (using them as an example because they make my favorite IPA in Sucks) and Bud made a good one, I'd be giving my business to AB-InBev.

That being said, I don't actively search out American adjunct lagers or their "lite' counterparts either.

 

Why would AB waste time brewing beers to meet craft drinkers wants? We're a fraction, they brew to the other 95% of people who drink beer regularly or for those who dabble when out. If it was my business and my money I'd do exactly what they're doing, and if I wanted craft I'd absorb highly respected breweries like Goose Island which doesn't need advertising, we suck that up anyway. I think GI other stuff is pedestrian at best, but that's another story BCBS drove that sale.

 

Very true. I think they are wrong also. Most "millennials" I know drink Bud, Coors or Miller Lite. That's if they drink beer at all.

 

This is squarely on point for me. I drink GI, and enjoy their Belgians and BCBS quite well. I am not a huge fan of the way they distribute these beers, but I do like the beer itself.

And if BMC produced other beers I wanted, I'd drink them, too. I've tried their crafty offerings and been unimpressed, and I am just not much of an AAL fan. Light beers are of no use to me - if I wanted to shave calories, I'd drink water.

 

The article is more crass. At least the Bud folks have done some homework and actually do understand who they are targeting. The author of the article is doing a partially informed rant, and a sloppy one at that.

But that’s consistent with the "news" source that published it.

 

As at least one other person has already noted, we are not the target for the marketing. They already are investing huge amounts of money in what many people do consider better beer. The Budweiser marketing plan will have an impact on their target demographic, but the author of the article has mis-identified the target and so the article is a waste of time.

 

Who are these Millennials and why have they been stealing old Bud cases from jesskidden's garage??

 

Most youngish mid 20's drink Bud Light just going off what I see at a few beer bars, more so than Miller Lite, and these places do offer craft up as well. A vast majority of the ladies might buy a bottle of wine and split it, perhaps a Bud Light as well, or Ultra. I would bet they sell more Corona of the other beers they sell. AB markets to mid 20's with discretionary cash, and they do a damn good job of it so good it's the new flagship brew by far. The old fogeys still drink their Bud no reason to spend money on them they already have them. Fri Happy Hour is a steady diet of Bud Light and Corona by far, then wine, then a bit of Heineken. Then there's 10 guys like me drinking craft.