"America" beer falls on it's face

Nice work Riff. You are doing good work.

 

It will be interesting to see sales figures for Bud/America in 2016 vs. a comparable timeframe for 2015.

Cheers!

 

I thought we were not supposed to care about ABI?

 

Looking at a statistically relevant amount of time, Budweiser trends went from negative every week to positive every week (if you adjust for the July 4th shift) since the America packaging debuted. I'd suspect that Budweiser sales could go back to flat or a slight Y/Y loss as we hit the end of the summer, but we'll see. Labor Day marks the end of the summer beer season, so if Budweiser can keep growing through Labor Day, "America" will be an out of the park home run. As-is today, Budweiser hit a solid triple and have a good chance of making it to home base. The curiosity will be whether or not they'll try to stick with the "America" campaign into the fall or go back to normal trade dress once summer is over.

If I had to guess what I expect to happen, I suspect they're nearing the end of their production runs on America containers and will sell through the rest in the next few weeks. I doubt there will be an official "return" to the normal Budweiser label, but we'll just go back to seeing it on shelves.

Like it or don't like it, the America packaging has been a winner for ABI.

 

This article is pretty useless in that it makes its argument based on opinion polls instead of sales figures. It doesn't matter what people's opinions are if the beer's sales are up.

 

Actually, you are wrong about that. Marketing programs are not evaluated by short-term gains or bumps in sales, they are evaluated by long-term influences in consumer behavior and repeat purchases to drive brand equity. And read closer - the objective of the campaign was to lure in Millennials, which surveys had shown were neglectful or ignorant of the Budweiser brand.

Furthermore, the amount of money spent on the "America" campaign, which includes the cost to overhaul packaging, all of the associated IP, media programming and spends, and wholesaler engagement has to be fully recouped first before any "gains" can be accounted for.

Continuing with the baseball metaphor, it is only the 2nd or 3rd inning of this ballgame. Check in several years from now and see if sales (particularly sales amongst millennials) have gone up or down for Budweiser red label.

On that note, the brand has been in decline for over 25 years, so its due for a rebound (or even a dead cat bounce) soon.

 

I am uncertain what the expression means but I laughed anyway!!

Right on!!

Cheers!

 

My favorite Chinese place was doing 99 cent Budweiser....err "America" bottles.
Had a couple for the first time in over 10 years.
Really its not that bad and has some taste to it.
Think i am going crazy!

 

I notice Amy Schumer ditched the commercials early. They didn't give her anything to do and now they have the customary brainless males you always see in beer ads.

 

For your edification, a dead cat bounce is the idea that every brand has a bottom, so it'll Hit the absolute bottom of it's popularity and start increasing because they can't go lower. If you look at the popularity of the Miller lite retro cans or the reinvigorated.pbr brand that really great marketing can change a brand's outlook. I disagree with sixpoints statement that the America cans ever were supposed to be a permanent shift of customer perception. (they'd take it if budweiser took off as America, don't get me wrong) I think it was just the marketing event of the summer.

 

All of which goes to show Lincoln was correct - you can't fool all the people all the time.

 

I can't believe I wasted my time perusing that article

 

I think the article that is linked by the above article is more interesting than the Time drivel, particularly the graphs. It's only one year of results but it's interesting that while Ad Awareness & Buzz have a predictably strong relationship, Consideration, while directionally related to Ad Awareness & Buzz, does not have as strong a relation to the two. The Super Bowl impact to awareness cannot be denied but it only seems to have a marginal bump to consideration. The introduction of the "America" campaign had a larger bump to consideration eve though the ad awareness & buzz impacts were smaller, especially the buzz which seems for some reason to have only increased weeks after the 'America' beers hit the shelves.

 

@Jaycase, thanks for pointing out the other article.

http://www.brandindex.com/article/after-initial-bump-budweiser-america-label-goes-flat

I know very little about advertising but I have worked quite a bit with marketing people. IMO marketing is as much 'art' as it is science. I would suspect that advertising is similar in this regard but it was interesting for me to see the metrics graphed out within that article.

@mwa423 @Sixpoint

Cheers!

 

If they were honest about where the company is based they could call it "Belgium" and raise the price to 14 bucks per four pack!

 

Actually a dead cat bounce is what would happen if you threw a dead cat over the side of the Empire State Building. (Or, on @Sixpoint's side of the East River, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, say)

It will hit the sidewalk.

It will bounce, though not very high. (It's a sidewalk, not a trampoline. And it's a dead cat, not a basketball.)

It will then come to rest, in pretty short order, on the sidewalk.

So while it can't get any lower than when it hits the sidewalk the first time, the point of the "dead cat" and "bounce" in the analogy is that it will only get a very little bit higher, and not for long, before settling to a permanent stasis at, well, zero.

Whether it applies in the case of America is extremely doubtful, as they are pretty fucking far from the sidewalk, although one can always hope, and I'm certainly on @Sixpoint's side here. But "it will hit the absolute bottom of its popularity and start increasing" is not a correct statement of "dead cat bounce," except for a very, very short time frame.

 

Anheuser-Busch, and the Budweiser brand, are based in St. Louis, MO. Missouri is in the United States, a.k.a. America.

 

Dead Cat Bounce, LMAO Live Cats don't bounce

If they named it Belgian and charged $14 for a four pack I'll bet the ratings on this site would be a lot better.

 

Huh, you learn something every day. That's about as vivid as they come term-wise. I'm guessing that a live cat bounce would be starting off great, landing on your feet and then running off somewhere to hide. Maybe that's applicable to one hit wonders or something??