AB InBev Bashing Craft?

True, but once you get more than one or two people involved in the decision, individual motives become much more diverse.

 

There's a mile of presumption in your thesis.
First, some truth about brewing prowess and inferior to superior notions of what you presume to be true.
I can hide hundreds of mistakes inside the profile of a double ipa, and most anything I imperialize. Trust me. I, and hundreds of other brewers have and will continue to do it. And people still love it because I can slap a "corporate beer still sucks." sticker on the tap handle, or draw a skull, and allude to some band or tattoo artist or I can get people line up outside my door once a year to freak out over it.
I can't hide a single one in an adjunct lager.

Please note too that the vast majority of the largest craft breweries which people hero worship are owned, operated and have brew masters who are in the 40s - 70s and we are also historically grounded enough as drinkers and supporters of this little corner of the beer world to see the bigger picture. That picture for some, as we are witnessing with the Lagunitas, Stones, Founders, Boulevards, Anchor, etc.
I think in one regard all we are seeing with the declining (American) sales is a rearranging of the deck chairs for the good ship beer America because many of the largest "craft" breweries (re: above mentioned) are actively repeating the patterns in how a good many of the current crop of BMC's became the BMC's as these largest of our lot look for new pastures and are involved in the respective growth for the sake of growth patterns of adding new facilities, going international and/or selling up while also (for now) maintaining control.

 

I've said this before here and it's probably repetitious, but we bought Ballantine Beer for $.79 a six-pack as freshmen in Richmond and were happy as could be. I've never watched much TV and cannot really comment too much on the legacy of beer advertising....I've always tried to ignore it for the most part. I did love the talking clams in the old National Bohemian ads, but I was a kid watching footbakll with my Dad. Johnny Unitas was way more interesting.

 

We'll have to disagree on what snobbery is, because where I'm from that's called bullying and intimidation, an appeal to the Id. I can't speak for Europe, but I think we're seeing what happens in America when you introduce choice - at an extremely fast rate. I'm guessing you read all the statistical data and just choose to ignore the trends. I think the majority of self-proclaimed AAL drinkers - especially the ones spending more - who claim they like it better are just liars. They either don't want to admit to anyone that they were susceptible to corporate propaganda for their entire lives or they hold on to it like team loyalty, for nostalgia, like Browns and Raiders fans. Of course, this is my opinion and my theory doesn't apply to everyone, just most.

Craft taking market share will continue to be a topic of conversation, because the ads aren't working. AB is trying to refocus on Asian and South American markets, and that's not working either as latest reports show that their most successful market, Brazil, is also in decline. Anyone have links to Budweiser ads in Rio?

 

In the context of a viewing it at, and through the lens of a completely commercialized and propaganda filled sporting event which is the pinnacle of American masculinity and its corporate high jacking of civic pride in a public arena. Yes. Of course there will be some making fun of, and feminizing of a "hobby" which gives its hop enthusiasts man boobs, and makes them do all sorts of funny things like camp out for an allotment of beer.
And advertising has always preyed upon these base responses and emotions. Meh. Advertising when you have nothing to say is actually quite funny, and quite telling for what it does say
I think the more interesting thing to point out, and from a social commentary standpoint which feeds into the bigger picture of a road that the local, artisinal, craft, independent, diy etc markets ALL have been working towards is a steadfast rejection of the one size fits all, one thing for everybody coca cola mentality because the line of offense the "Proud to be macro" advertising took on operates in direct defense of that big box multi-national coca cola tastes the same everywhere mentality.
Since we're talking about a culture which prides itself in feats of stupid prowess, and in our defense against "them." Just get "them" to try shotgunning a pounder can of 9% abv beer sometime, and tell me what their response is 15 seconds after finishing it.

 

Snobbery can indeed be intimidating and bullying, so I guess you just don't wan't to call intimidating bullies snobs for some reason.

There is nothing I read that shows that craft is grabbing market share from BMC brands. In fact, all I've read think that spirits, cider, and wine are grabbing market share from beer, with only the craft segment of beer showing an increase in popularity, while beer as a whole is in decline. Of course you could be right, and there is no way now to find out, but I am going with the opinions of the experts I have read on the subject.

And the ads for BMC don't influence, nor try to influence, craft drinkers to drink AAL, they don't influence wine, cider, and spirits drinkers to drink AAL, they try to influence folks who love AAL to drink a particular brand of AAL.

 

Maybe I'm not thin skinned enough to be a BA or craft beer drinker. AB-IBV makes a joke about craft beer drinkers, who cares. Some one ribs you about drinking fancy beer, so what. Does it really upset people that most other drinkers don't enjoy the same types beer they do? Craft beer is here to stay. It's not going to change because of an ad run during the Super Bowl.

 

The simply answer is that the Miller Lite guys would absolutely love to pull share from Coors Light and vice versa. As has been pointed elsewhere in this thread, the Bud guys and the AB InBev guys work for Goose Island, say, compete with one another just as much as they do with brands not under the AB InBev umbrella. The same is true of the Coors and Miller brand managers. These guys (I know, I keep saying guys, but just consider that shorthand for men and women) are rated and compensated based on the sales of the products they oversee. While the folks in the MillerCoors boardroom would certainly rather they pull share from AB InBev or others outside their conglomerate, the line managers are just being told to sell as much of their specific product as they can.

To that end, each brand is funding their own, independent advertising and marketing campaigns. I would be utterly shocked to learn that they coordinate those efforts across or between brands. Here are a couple other things to consider:
1. While it's been a few years since they merged, there are probably still a fair number of legacy Miller and legacy Coors brand managers working at MillerCoors. And their pride and sense of "belonging" to whichever company they grew up in probably hasn't diminished since the merger. In fact, it may well have grown even fiercer. I guaranty anyone who came up in either of those companies before the merger believes that their legacy product is the company's flagship brand.
2. For mid-level managers and above looking to get ahead, putting up better sales numbers for your Coors Lite product than your rival did for his Miller Lite brand gives you a leg up in the competition for the next promotion.

While there is a healthy level of competition in the craft world, it tends (for the most part) to be relatively friendly with brewers cooperating to make "shared" brews, lending equipment and supplies under some circumstances, etc. I would say the competition between most craft brewers is far friendlier than the internecine warfare that goes on between different divisions in a huge corporation.

 

You can say that again!

Early on in some of my consulting work I was involved with a large corporation where a 90 year old division that generated a steady 10% of corporate profits was successful, for a while at least, at suppressing growth in a new division that was organized to deal with a new product that had the potential to grow to 30% or more of corporate profits with also a reasonably large increase in those overall profits. The dynamics of that internal stuff can create all kinds of interesting situations.

 

Thank you for sharing your opinions on the MillerCoors Marketing & Sales structure.

I suspect that you are correct that there is a separate Line of Business (LOB) aspect in place and that folks are incentivized solely within their LOB. From my perspective, this is not rational from a MillerCoors corporate perspective. Providing financial incentive (e.g., sales bonuses) to Miller Marketing & Sales organization which likely resulted in lost sales for the Coors LOB is not rational from a corporate point of view in my opinion. I don’t doubt that this occurs.

Cheers!

 

I disagree in general, but perhaps not in the specific case of corporate cannibalism due to marketing and advertising only. Where I disagree is the fear of a large corporation to compete with itself has led more than one into failure. I don't see the large breweries doing this, even though their actions to compete with themselves are viewed here, oddly, as hypocrisy.

 

You stated the point I was making: “…not in the specific case of corporate cannibalism due to marketing and advertising only.”

This is my sole point I was discussing.

Cheers!

 

I agree with Mr. Falconi. There's way too much crap about beer being "art" or "magic". It isn't. It's a technical process. That doesn't make it one jot less wonderful.

 

Yes, and the youngsters won't want to be seen dead drinking the beer 70-year olds like. In 20 years time no hip 25 year old will be drinking IPA.

 

I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure how you can incentivize marketing and sales exclusively for sales growth that comes from taking market share from competitors. There's really no effective way to track that. It's also worth noting that the prevailing corporate culture these days is one of intense internal competition (thanks Jack Welch!). So, I would suspect that if Miller Lite sales go up at the same time Coors Light sales drop, the Coors Light guys are going to be given a small window of time to reverse that decline, regardless of who's stealing their sales.

When you're talking about what are essentially commodity products, there's no real way to effectively co-brand their Miller and Coors products to say, "drink either of these. They're both great and so much better than any other brand." You need to establish some manner of differentiation, which is very difficult when the products are essentially indistinguishable. The go-to method in recent years (decades) is to attach your product to a specific lifestyle and hope that people who aspire to that lifestyle will buy your product in hopes of finding themselves living in the ad. When you have two virtually identical brands in Coors and Miller, that means you have the chance to target two different segments, and hopefully, realize a net increase. But the whole borrowed interest/lifestyle thing has been so totally overdone that pretty much no one buys it any more. That's why I admire what Bud is doing. Less than trying to sell a different lifestyle, they're telling their customers to take pride in the life they're already living (complete with an 18-pack of Bud Lite, of course)

 

As a pussified, American male I take umbrage at your assertion (as I drink my John Carling's Finest and work from home) Umbrage, I say! (shakes fist in a pussified manner)

Oh, wait: I'm drinking another Trippel from NBB . . . carry on. And lighten up, Francis.

 

“I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure how you can incentivize marketing and sales exclusively for sales growth that comes from taking market share from competitors. There's really no effective way to track that.”

FWIW I have no real solution here. I am not a Marketing & Sales person so I figured I would ‘bounce’ thoughts off you.

“It's also worth noting that the prevailing corporate culture these days is one of intense internal competition (thanks Jack Welch!).” I have in the past worked many, many years for GE under the leadership of Jack Welch so I am personally well versed in his ‘vision’. GE sold my division off to a competitor but it was interestingly characterized as a “merger”. Yeah, right!?!

Cheers!

 

I Can Understand what the O.P. is Talking About, However,[IMHO] I think it's just A.B./InBev trying to get BUD Back on track,just a few years ago,2 out of 3 beers sold in Bars was BUD,but now Bud Light is their Main seller,and BUD has really took a Major Ass Kicking in Sales across the Board,and it is Never a good thing when Your Flagship Brew [BUD] Starts to tank in overall Sales-I Myself found the Commercial rather funny,and so did a LOT of people,people like my Dad & Brother in law who pointed right @ me and asked me how my "Punkin Peach Ale" Was tasting when the Ad came on during the race last Sunday..lol, and that is the Kind of Person this Ad is really Aimed at,the kind of person who could give a flying fuck about "Craft Beer" and will Always be a Macro B.M.C. Guy,NO matter how many times you try and get them to perhaps open their mind a bit and try a "Craft Beer",last week I gave my Dad a Sculpin, and went on for about 15-20 Min's singing it's Praises,and how beyond Amazing "Ballast Point Brewery" truly is, so the old man cracks it open,slams a chug from the bottle, and what does he say to me? TASTE LIKE HORSE PISS! BLECKKK!....lmfao, I Myself love ALL kinds of Beer,including Macro AAL's and even some cheap ass Malt Liquors,however I do very much Adore my Craft Beers and always cannot wait to try some new offering from one of my favorite Micro Breweries,ahhhh.... so Much Beer,so little time-cheers all!

 

I haven't seen the commercials you're talking about, but I could only speculate that: the target demographic they are selling to are people who don't care about 'craft' beer, and just enjoy watching sports and what not with a simple cold beer. Lots of people in this world would make fun of people who they think are 'snobby, know it all' types, like wannabe food critics on Yelp, which unfortunately are what a lot of craft beer fans come across as. And at this point, craft beer is still a minority in comparison to people who drink Bud light, Coors, Miller, or any mainstream beer you see on tv and radio. This type of customer probably doesn't even know about a company called InBev, nor do they care. They see the Budweiser logo. If they saw a 'white whale', they'd probably not even care, and be more excited about a discount on the six pack on Heineken. I don't think it's bad. When InBev wants to start doing advertising for Bourbon County, it would probably be an entirely different kind of ad, to a completely different kind of person.

 

Given the original discussion here... thought this was worth it. McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Monologue: I Am the Masked Vigilante of Bud Light’s Whatever, USA.