Budweiser Black Crown...already down?

Think it's just another niche attempt by macro. Look at the black crown commercial vs. the guinness black lager commercial for example...scary similar

 

me

 

Plenty of winos/panhandlers at every intersection down here, hand them the bag and do a good deed.

 

I just read the editorial (Greg Kitsock) in the June/July 2013 edition of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News (MABN). Budweiser Black Crown was discussed in the editorial. I think that Greg Kitsock had a great observation of:

“The wide gulf between craft brewers and those whom the BA calls “crafty” lies not in the talent and dedication in the brewhouse, but in the respective marketing departments. Faced with new ingredients and processes, marketers for the big international brewers wonder aloud, “Will it sell?” and come up with half-a-dozen focus group reports and pie charts to prove it won’t. The craft brewer takes a sip of the prototype and muses, “Hell, why not”.

MABN is available on-line for those interested in reading the entire editorial.

Cheers!

 

#makeitplatinum

 

I agree, honestly if you blind tasted it to me next to some craft lagers, I'm not sure most people could pick it out. I boycott it out of principle, but honestly it is a solid amber lager.

 

Just goes to show you that the average BMC drinker doesn't like beer taste

I was in Vegas three weeks ago for a bachelor party and both hotel pools only had the Bud Family products. At the Hard Rock I ordered Platinum because I Budweiser and Light is god awful and surprisingly they were sold out. Same at the other pool.
Then I was on a mission to try it when there wasn't a single better choice and Pink Taco was sold out. Either hotels don't know how to order, or the stuff is selling.

 

here at Hoops, neither Platinum nor Black Crown shot out of the gate.
Since the debuts, Platinum has kept pace with Michelob Ultra and Harpoon IPA.
Mostly women.
Makes sense to them.
6.0=buzz for less liquid calories
Black Crown is collecting dust.

Since the whole ABV gate last year though, Bud Heavy is up almost 200% in bottles, and Bud Light down 50%.

My .02 : I tried both, and of the two, I liked the Black Crown better. But, I'm old.
It reminded me of beers I used to steal out of Mr. Turbarg's Garage when I was 10.
(What?)

 

I remember Red Dog and Icehouse doing pretty well back when I was in college. The Plank Road brewery. We thought they were a new microbrewery competing with Sam Adams. Until someone figured out it was Miller. Some ice beers are still around.

Dunno why they called it Red Dog either. Wasn't a red beer.

I remember Zima at the same time, and it did pretty well for a few years. A clear malt beverage, made by Coors. And Coors had a big hit--still does--with Blue Moon.

Going back even longer, I remember a time before light beers, which was a pretty bold move by big breweries--a beer with fewer calories. No one cared much about calories back in the 70s except for women, so you gotta give the breweries props for creating what has become a mainstay.

But I also remember some epic fails. The whole "dry" beer craze. After Zima was a hit, there were a lot of imitators, all failures, including the Zima variants. I actually didn't mind Zima, and would love to try one again. But Zima Gold was disgusting.

When Miller bought Sparks it went nationwide and fueled the caffeine/high abv bev craze, which was popular until the law shut it down.

To survive, businesses have to innovate. If you aren't failing, you aren't trying hard enough.

That said, big breweries should read The Innovator's Dilemma. In a nutshell, once you dominate an industry, you'll eventually be run out of business by a smaller, smarter company, because fighting for small marketshare percentages in the present usually means ignoring the future.

I love Jim Koch for his willingness to experiment. Utopias is terrific. And when I'm stuck at a party with zero craft beer, they'll usually have Sam Adams and I can manage to suck down a few.

And I'll give props to Leinenkugel, because their recent Big Eddy beers are craft beer done right. Not a marketing gimmick, but actually decent. Best of the best? No. But for a big brewery? Nice work. And I bet in a blind taste test most BAs would score their RIS higher than the 86 rating it currently holds.

As for AB InBev's/SABMiller's marketing prowess--it's extraordinary. That's why they sell more beer than all other breweries combined. When something becomes an automatic purchase (bought without thinking about competitors), the company is a winner. And AB InBev has turned millions of beer drinkers into brand loyal automatic buyers. Not an easy thing to do, especially considering how one dimensional most American pilsners are.

If I were a big brewer, I'd stop messing with successful brands. Instead, I'd start buying craft breweries and infuse them with cash to improve distribution. For example, if I'm SABMiller, I buy Dogfish Head, let Sam and the gang continue to run it, but bump up production and distribution. That's how dinosaurs stay relevant in changing business climates. And make no mistake--American pilsner is a gateway drug to craft beer. If the big breweries want to keep their share, the way to do it is by buying those who are innovating, rather than trying to guess what consumers want.

 

“As for AB InBev's/SABMiller's marketing prowess--it's extraordinary. That's why they sell more beer than all other breweries combined.”

It is true that AB InBev/SABMiller sells a lot of beer (the most beer) in the US.

However considering: “On the downside, however, the Belgium-based brewing giant also confirmed Thursday that Budweiser's volume in the U.S. shrank for the 23rd straight year in 2011”, I have a difficult time using the word “extraordinary” with respect to AB InBev’s marketing prowess. I grant that they sell a lot of beer but having your beer volumes decrease year after year after year is not a business success (in my opion).

Cheers!

 

What big breweries are facing right now is similar to being disrupted by an innovative technology. In my biz, Amazon is slowly taking over bookselling and publishing. That doesn't mean the Big 5 publishers aren't successful anymore. They are. But they will lose the war eventually.

AB InBev/SABMiller (AMIBSM for short) will be around for a while, and it will continue to sell a lot of beer and make a lot of money. But their margins will tighten and they'll continue to lose marketshare. Now is the time to dump the stock.

But I'd still call them successful.

 

A childhood friend lives in Edmonton and other parts of Alberta, Canada.
She tells me that stuff sells out instantly

 

Plain and simple, it was a bad month by Budweiser standards because both sales and volume should increase.
Constant growth.

 

Well to be fair, they're not marketing this beer at craft beer drinkers.

They're trying to make a beer that will steal market share away from Michelob. That's called brand cannibalism and you've seen it in the past whenever the various divisions of General Motors would cannibalize sales between each other though the use of brand dilution and badge engineering.

In this case, brand dilution AND badge engineering. There isn't much to differentiate it from standard Budweiser, at least in the case of my palate.

 

Sapphire is heavily discounted at the liquor store I frequent. Poor sales for something that isn't much different from Beck's ( at least to my palate).

Come to think of it, so is Platinum. I guess that crap doesn't sell with anyone up here.

 

I want to see someone save up all these gimmick beers that macrobreweries make for the next 5 years--At least until craft brew really finishes putting the squeeze on them.

 

I was playing a bar one night and the Bud girls came in giving it away. I couldn't get through one. NASTY stuff. Imagine everything you hate about Budweiser and double it.

 

Dr.Rockso would drink it if it had coke in it.