Wharton: Can an industry that has spent a fortune on TV ads featuring mud wrestlers and talking frogs suddenly change its stripes to appeal to the wine-and-cheese, single-malt Scotch crowd? The makers of Budweiser and other brands of beer hope so.
Frits van Paasschen, president and chief executive of Coors Brewing, told Knowledge@Wharton that his company supports an industry effort to enhance the beer category. “We have agreed to empower the Beer Institute to develop a communications strategy to promote beer as the leading alcohol beverage in the U.S., but exactly what that looks like has not been decided,” he notes. “It’s up to our individual brands to give people a reason to come back to beer.”
More than anything van Paasschen added, “…it’s incumbent on brewers to make sure they have brands that are interesting and compelling to consumers. We have to find ways to reinforce core equities of each brand, find new and exciting ways to grab attention again, to make beer cool.”
Beer has never been and will never be a likely pair with wine and cheese and the single malt crowd. Maybe the hot dog and nachos crowd, but never the wine and cheese. Besides who says the hot dogs and nachos crowd is not a viable target. Hell, Budweiser should start some foo foo hot dog and nachos parties and stop trying to be something they are not.
When did wine and cheese and single malt scotch become the target that everyone desires anyway? Including an entire beer industry? Come on guys! So scotch is cool again thanks to Johnnie Walker ads, Sex and the city, Entourage and the metrosexual male. But believe me there are a whole lot of just regular, football watching, nascar loving, basketball cheering guys that drink beer – all the time!! Sometimes everyday! Beer will always be just beer and as Al Bundy says, “We didn’t break free from that pantsy country England by voting! We did it by throwing their stinkin’ tea in our American harbour! And why? Because Americans don’t like tea. We like coffee. And Americans don’t like wine. We like beer. Ice cold. Ice-cold-best-in-a-bottle-but-fine-any-way-you-can-get-it-belchin. It would make a great movie! Better than that damn Columbus. America was already there, it would take a genious to invent a toilet bowl! wake-up-in-a-pool-of-it-next-day-beer!
So if the beer marketers want to sell more beer or make beer more popular come out with a Sex in Suburbia sponsored by Bud, or just make the regular guy popular again and not afraid to say I – LOVE – BEER!!