In a move that has been a long time coming, the entire beer industry is joining forces against wine and spirits. I think this will be really interesting to watch.
Back in the day, I used to do a little work with Diageo...maker of mediocre libations like Captain Morgan, Crown Royal and V/O (which stands for Very Own...bet you didn't know that). In those days we made it our life's mission to get beer drinkers to "trade up" one drink sooner. Once that was accomplished, we tried to get beer drinkers to START with a cocktail instead of a beer. Looks like we did a pretty decent job...
Well, now that I'm in the beer industry, I'm fighting to get that drink back. Let's face it...beer is pretty safe and Anheuser-Busch isn't going out of business any time soon. But big companies have lots of stock holders who are used to seeing that stock rise...and when it's not, executives get very nervous.
But I'm really interested in seeing how the brewers play in the sandbox. Unless you've been locked in a closet or off in some remote corner of the world, you know that A-B, Miller and Coors have been going at each other like little girls for some time now...to the detrament of all. Miller's "More Taste" campaign is tired...with only the Flava Flav courtroom spot standing out. Coors, well , they're basically a regional beer (did you know Busch beer out sells ALL of Coors?).
And the category leader, A-B, hasn't been acting as such and has been wasting time and resources responding to everyone for the last two years.
Anyway, I like the move of creating a "Got Beer?" style movement...but it will be interesting to see who plays, who pouts...and who wins.
SPB
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