Why Big beer gets "crafty"

Big beer sales down
Craft beer sales up

Wanting to distance association with their craft brands (purchased) and "crafty" brands for fear of avoidance by association. They want the craft $.

 

Exactly. They don't want consumers to know that their faux craft is made by Coors, Anheuser-Busch, etc. It is deliberate.

 

That's pretty much it. Most people don't geek out about beer like we do.

 

The thought of a good beer being delivered by a team of clydesdales is tough for most higher end beer drinkers to grasp, and the marketing departments can recognize this.

That being said, those same marketing departments don't know how to reach those real beer drinkers, as those consumers have given up on said brands products for some time now. I don't mind Justin Timberlake, but I couldn't give two shits if he drinks Bud Light Platinum or not, cause' I'm certainly not drinking it.

We can all recognize that the beers we drink require a level of passion, commitment, time, and risk the the more profit driven powerhouse beer producers (notice the lack of the word "breweries" here) have no ability to channel. Why even waist eight or nine bucks on a sixer of their newest attempt?

 

Because they want more money.

 

People have basically said it all already. Makes sense if you worked for the big companies...try to sell "craft" or "crafty" beer that the average person that buys it won't know it is made by you and profit in the short term on the craft beer craze. It's only going to keep growing from 5% of the market for awhile at least. Not at all worried about a bubble for quite awhile.

 

Simply put for the Benjamin's!

 

The big guys are scrambling like hell to fix the hole in the balloon. They've brought back some guys from the 60s to fix things. Don Draper is an effing genius even though he is imaginary. Another agency is hot on their heels to pick up the cash. Time has told.

 

Based upon some of the posts that BAs have made concerning BMC type beers I can very much understand why they are marketing their craft-type beers under another name (e.g., Blue Moon, Shock Top, etc.) since they figure that many beer drinkers will not buy craft beer labeled as being brewed by a BMC brewing company.

As a consumer I despise these non-transparent marketing strategies but from a BMC business perspective I understand why they do it.

Cheers!

 

I will never understand the hatred and the venom directed at the so called 'big boys". Ya'll bellow for free markets for small brewers and then whinge when the big boys say "craft". Who gives a fuck what they call it? If consumers don't buy it it will go away.
In the same fashion "local is good" is bullshit. I am blessed to live in an area where many of the local brewers are very, very good but when the bubble bursts on local is good don't be surprised, there's a lot of crap out there chugging along on hte local bandwagon that will eventually ne exposed.

 

"OMG this ale is fukkin amazing! Wait! Whats that u say?!? It's made by Inbev? MillerCoors distributes it? Aw fukk this horrible shit"!

 

Black Friday will be a true demonstration of the general craft enthusiast's embrace of BMC's involvement in craft beer.

 

Misleading marketing signifies a lack of respect for the consumer's intelligence.

How many of the big company owned brands are actually tasty? Goose Island and that's about it? If the big guys were actually making tasty beer instead of making crappy beer and then pandering to people's sexual frusgtration, far fewer people would be complaining.

 

If it wasn't made by the Evil Empire, "crafty" advocates would be singin' its praises. Y'all slay me.

 

Its not just the name or label, the product IS inferior in most respects.
And even their target consumers can tell.
Had a girl friend who drank only Blue Moon White as far as beer went then i asked her to try Hoegaarden..she liked that far more.
The trouble for BMC is that some of those that pick up a Shock top or Blue Moon will get curious and try better beers than they can make. What that percentage will be is any guess, but i am seeing the likes of Leffe and Hoegaarden in every regular grocery store.

 

and yes i know those are both INbev but still way better than BLue Moon or Shock Top

 

"local is good" 'is bullshit'. I'm glad that you cleared this up so nicely. But please know that I love my local brews because they (many) are damned good! If a product is marginal or worse, most folks will stay away. You are entirely free to buy crappy beer from locales everywhere. Don't buy what you don't like. Why should anyone care what other folks drink?

 

For the same reason I'd be annoyed if a small brewer slapped labels from a Trappist monastery on their Belgian beers and did not put their name on it anywhere. At its core, it's a deceptive business practice.

I couldn't agree more. Except I'm from a part of Ohio where the locals are almost universally average or below.

 

Puff Daddy said it best when he said "it's all about the Benjamin's, baby." As has been said, big beer sales are down and craft is up. Anyone with half a marketing sense will realize the potential there. And this is nothing new, look at the wine market, you have your Sutter Homes, Mondavis, Cavits, Yellowtails...mass appeal wines. Then you have a plethora of small wineries that really cater to the wine connoisseur. The 90's saw a huge boom in "craft wine" (and I use that term very loosely, but you get the idea) not all too dissimilar from the craft boom of today. Some wineries hung around, a lot went under. The craft beer market will be much the same.