Don Russell (“Joe Sixpack”) offered a great overview the other day of why Anheuser-Busch InBev will be dropping big bucks Sunday for Super Bowl ads supporting the new Budweiser Black Crown and Beck’s Sapphire.
It’s about driving the conversation. Grant Pace, the guy who thought up the Bud Bowl, has the complete explanation. Worth the time it takes to read (scroll to the bottom).
Black Crown emerged from an initiative A-B called Project 12 1 (sorry, age check required), which I wrote about in the January issue of All About Beer magazine. My interest was more in 63118, the Project beer brewed in St. Louis.
(I liked it much better than 91406, the Los Angeles beer chosen to become Black Crown. Of course, that’s probably a good touch point — I’m not the target audience for Black Crown; nor are the five or so of you reading this.)
However, my story ended up being as much about marketing — relevancy and conversation — as about the nuts and bolts of 63118.
“Until two years ago there were a lot of 21 to 27-year-olds who weren’t drinking Bud,” Nate Scudieri, Budweiser senior brand manager, said after St. Louis brewmaster Jim Bicklein led us through parts of the brewery Scudieri hadn’t seen previously (apparently they don’t get a lot of requests to see the hop storage area). “It wasn’t as relevant a brand to them.
“What it (Project 12) does, it gets consumers to look at Budweiser differently,” Scudieri said. “It exists to give people a reason to try Budweiser (itself) again, when they see the sort of things Budweiser is capable of. (Drinkers 21 to 27 years old) are interested in finding what’s new in beer. Styles, ABV, color. They want to discover the beers and share them with their friends.”
I’ve been known to have a beer or two with Mike Kallenberger, who comments from here from time to time. He operates Tropos Brand Consulting and previously worked for 30 years at Miller Brewing and MillerCoors. He has on occasion brought up the term “share of mind.” Those with a long memory consider those dirty words, because they remember when A-B put the clamps on distributors, demanding full “share of mind,” making it clear whose brands should get their full attention.
But as Kallengberger points out, “share of mind” leads market share. “It’s much, much bigger (for craft beer) than the percentage of sales,” he said. “Maybe 40 or 50 percent of the quote, unquote, conversation.”
Which brings us back to what what Pace wrote Russell in that lengthy email.
In that way the big beer companies lost the conversation. If you wanted to discuss, talk about or mention beer all the mindshare was in the microbrews. And meanwhile, young people migrated to cocktails and the healthy set over to wine. Both not coincidentally offer not only an endless variety of styles and flavors, but also conversation, lore and positions and sides to take. Fruity or dry? Chilled? Dirty or neat? Ice? Soda? Olive, onion or capers? The discussion is endless.
There are plenty of examples of how large brewing companies are trying to make their beers part of the conversation again. Curiously, by writing about this, Russell and I are promoting that conversation, which I’m about to compound by giving you a bunch of links. But to be clear, in case you hadn’t considered it, smaller brewing companies do this too. Although I’ve seen the Brewers Association’s “Craft vs. Crafty” initiative described as ill-considered it has clearly attracted the attention of the people the BA wants paying attention. (And last week, when the Wall Street Journal posted the story and video with a link below I got an email asking if I thought this was an example of “craft vs. crafty.” Tell me that “c v. c” hasn’t changed the conversation).
Also, the other day Charlie Papazian tweeted a link to the “I am a Craft Brewer” video to his nearly 20,000 followers. Just to keep it top of mind.
Now to the links.
* Budweiser joined Twitter this week (www.twitter.com/budweiser), and the first tweet was a picture of the newest Clydesdale. This is part of a Twitter/Facebook promotion to name this Clydesdale. The Super Bowl commercial that features baby foal had already been viewed 2.5 million times on YouTube by Saturday morning.
* Compare the Clydesdale commercial to the one for the one for Black Crown or Beck’s Sapphire. Obviously more than one beer conversation going on these days. And, by the way, there’s a Saphire banner on the top of the YouTube home page today.
* Here’s an interview with Jill Vaughn, who has worked in A-B’s St. Louis brewery since 1996 and is in charge of the Shock Top brand. Shock Top, of course is one of those “crafty” beers that might fool consumers into thinking it is “craft” rather than brewed in several A-B plants around the country. Maybe, but in St. Louis it sits on grocery store shelves next to Bud Light. Seems pretty obvious. One thing I learned from Kallenberger a few years ago, during a presentation at the Craft Brewers Conference, is that millennials (those Gen Y consumers hitting their prime beer drinkers) value diversity. Female brewer = good.
* Triple points for an African-American, female brewer who is a millennial herself. Meet Rebecca Reid, who was featured in Barron’s about a week ago. She created the recipe for Bud Light Platinum. Now she “is trying to stretch the boundaries of what typically ends up in a beer. Recently she mixed hibiscus flowers with wheat and lemon peels to approximate the taste of a ‘strawberry lemonade’ beer.” I’m guessing that Alan McLeod and Jeff Alworth may not approve.
*****
1 The recipes for the six Project 12 beers were the product of the dozen brewmasters in charge of the company’s American breweries. They collaborated on the beers, creating six that took the names of the ZIP Codes where they were brewed. Consumers tasted them and provided feedback throughout the summer, 10,000 of them at the Made in America Festival – a music extravaganza in Philadelphia headlined by Jay-Z over Labor Day weekend. A St. Louis-area distributor posted when samples would be served at a few taverns not far from our house. So I dropped by one of them on a weekday night. Not until I got there did I realize this was atypical. This was not a special event people drove out of their way for, say like when Stone Brewing and Deschutes Brewery began selling beer in Missouri relatively recently.
There were two representatives there. One would wander over to the bar and invite customers back to sample a couple of ounces of each of the six Project 12 beers. When the woman pouring beer got to 63118 she warned each drinker it was much more bitter than Budweiser itself, even mentioning it contained 18 International Bitterness Units, compared to 10 in Bud.
(A-B seldom talks about IBU in Bud or its other beers. In 1982, Joe Owades, a legend in brewing circles who is credited with developing the first light beer, estimated the bitterness of Budweiser was equivalent to 20 IBU in 1946, and still 17 in the 1970s.)
The 63118 was noticeably bitter, but not exactly a shock to my system. What was striking was the hop aroma, since it turned out most of the hops (Mittelfrüh, from both the Hallertau and Tettnang regions of Germany) were added at the end of boiling, resulting in an elegant, floral-spicy aroma. That’s one reason it was my favorite.
Isn’t the “share of mind” one of the engines behind the “new beer of the week” model many a small brewery seem to be working with today?
Max – A fair question. Although in our parts there are several brewpubs or breweries with tasting rooms that put out something special once a week. Might be a new beer (although more likely a small batch, and thus testing something), might be a firkin of a regular beer dry hopped or spiced. In that case the share of mind is mostly regular customers, who know they can regularly expect something new.
I think what Mike was talking about is that when people talk about beer these days “craft” almost always ends up in the conversation.
The question I heard many times over when they announced Black Crown was if A-B was targeting craft drinkers. They are just targeting drinkers, and those might be people who are otherwise drinking wine or spirits (or craft) beer. Somebody the other day suggested “they are selling beer by ABV. Everything is 6%.” Interesting thought.
I’ll go out on a limb here, but if they were targeting craft drinkers, they wouldn’t be calling the beer “Bud”.
On a related note. Is it only me, or there are a bit too many people in the “craft” side of the industry who believe that people drink either “craft” or “non-craft”? If so, aren’t they really, really wrong? I’m sure there are a lot of casual, or even regular, “craft beer” drinkers who don’t mind buying brands.
Most (No adjective here) beer industry people understand that there’s a lot of crossover. It seems to be a more difficult concept for craft beer evangelists to grasp.
Good to know I wasn’t THAT wrong. (I guess I’ve made the mistake of believing that what some business people say in public is the same as they say in private).
“…beer industry people understand that there’s a lot of crossover.”
I think we’re stuck in that “definition” whirlpool here again. What is craft, what is BMC, what is “crossover?”
I can’t remember the last time I bought a BM or C, maybe when I was providing beer for the holidays and my BIL drank Miller Lite — some 15 years ago.
Of course you then talk about Goose Island now being owned by A-B and yeah, maybe I’m adding to their coffers, but am I truly crossing over?
And then we step from muddy to murky when we talk about the likes of Guinness and Spaten.
Where, exactly, does crossover start and/or stop?
By the way — seen the Black Crown, it’s not tempting me.
” Triple points for an African-American, female brewer who is a millennial herself. Meet Rebecca Reid, who was featured in Barron’s about a week ago. She created the recipe for Bud Light Platinum. Now she “is trying to stretch the boundaries of what typically ends up in a beer.”
I wonder what working for AB offers her that working at a small pub wouldn’t apart from the obvious, like rolling out a national brand etc. “Stretch the boundaries of what typically ends up in a beer” is nothing new. Maybe for AB corporate environment it is.
Stan, does she have Florian’s old job? I’d love to hear his perspective on that.
Andrew – I’ll ask him next time I see him. But he didn’t do variations on Bud (well, I guess Platinum is a variation Bud Light).
“I wonder what working for AB offers her that working at a small pub wouldn’t apart from the obvious.”
If by “the obvious” you mean better wages, benefits, the chance to travel the world on company’s money, etc. Then the answer is obvious.
It’s possible that this woman has as much passion about beer and brewing as you, but last time I checked, being a brewer is a job.
I have huge respect for those who are successful following their dream and doing what they love. But there’s nothing wrong with playing safe, being pragmatic, while perhaps still doing a job you love.
“I have huge respect for those who are successful following their dream and doing what they love. But there’s nothing wrong with playing safe, being pragmatic, while perhaps still doing a job you love.”
There’s no denigration of her choice to work there coming from me. It’s not something I would have chosen, but for me that key line of “stretching the boundaries” is something I would think would be a lot easier in a small, non-corporate brewery.
I know full well that AB has the capabilities, educated employees, and resources to make any beer that’s ever been conceived, but that’s not what AB does.
(and as an aside “better wages, benefits, the chance to travel the world on company’s money, etc” I get all of those things too and don’t work for a large brewery)
I’m one third joking here, but isn’t it for a brewer a lot more challenging to try to make something you and I could consider interesting, decent, etc. within the corporate constrains of a company like ABIB?
If you think of it, as (and correct me, if I’m wrong) the owner of a micro brewery, you have it a lot easier. You call the shots and decide what gets made, you have a freer hand and have a more direct contact with your consumers. Rebecca Reid, on the other hand, has a much tougher audience, a bunch of suits who may o may not give a toss about beer to begin with.
Well I’m not the president, but I am a client. //http://youtu.be/IuRLGdGnqSU?t=49s//
I don’t know first hand what it’s like going against corporate hivemind in a setting like that, but I can assume from what I’ve heard Mitch Steele and others say, that it doesn’t take much to throw those guys for a loop. Mitch talks at length in IPA about brewing hoppy beers and how foreign it is to everyone.
Which to the point of having it easier, I would say it goes both ways. Making something other than an American Light Lager or subtle variant of it might seem far afield from the big boys, but I can think of at least two beers here in Chicago that have Hibiscus flowers in them. That doesn’t sound to me at all like pushing the boundaries. Don’t you need to know who is actually pushing said boundaries in this day and age to know where they need to be pushed?
Regardless, there is never going to be a conversation at my brewery where someone comes to the table and says, “I want to make an ultra light, gluten free cider.”
//Last year Anheuser-Busch began selling gluten-free Michelob Ultra Light Cider, which Ms. Reid helped develop in the pilot brewery. Because cider is made from fermented apples instead of grains it is not technically beer, but brewers are increasingly plunging in because cider sales are growing rapidly.
Ms. Reid and her dozen assistants also recently experimented with several Christmas beers, brewing a peppermint stout as well as gingerbread, raisin and apple-pie ales that might one day make their way to store shelves.//
Peppermint stout, gingerbread, etc honestly sounds to me like homebrew experiments or things that pubs were doing in the mid 90’s. I don’t think that’s the direction that beer is going right now, but what do I know, RateBeer says we’re only the #2 brewery in the world right now. (Tongue firmly in cheek)
The thing is that ABIB, etc. aim at the mass market, and for the mass market, beer is still a mildly alcoholic refreshment and, just like they do with most of the stuff they consume, they do not care too much about where or how it’s made. Their problem is that the mass market isn’t drinking so much anymore and that has put a huge strain on their business models based on growth and expansion (just as I discussed here a while ago http://www.pivni-filosof.com/2012/04/another-way-to-see-revoultion.html ).
I wonder what will happen when they find their feet. Because, sooner or later they will.
I do think the constant innovation (“new beer of the week”) is one of the reasons craft is dominating the conversation — if you want people to keep talking about you, you’ve got to give them new things to talk about.
But the real thing that intrigues (and puzzles) me about this thread is the marketing of Black Crown. The whole back story on this beer — Project 12, the brewmasters, “stretching the boundaries” — this seems designed to go right to the hot buttons of a craft drinker. And yes, it would make sense to give it the Bud name — as a way for the new beer to elevate that name, and get “Bud” back in the conversation. But, despite all this, the teaser ad for Black Crown reeks of the superficial status-consciousness that is very Stella/Heineken-ish, and is virtually anathema to craft drinkers. My guess? The “project” changed hands from one marketing person to the next, and the new person either recognized that the beer itself just wasn’t going to grab craft drinkers, or — and this is where my money is — he/she just took the path of least resistance when it came to designing the ad.
By the way, though this is probably already clear to everyone — when “share of mind” was a dirty word, it was because A-B was demanding 100% share of the distributor’s mind. In our context, we’re talking about share of the beer drinker’s mind — which ABI would love to be able to “demand,” but clearly can’t.
Stan, great piece top to bottom. Fun times, aren’t they?
As far as your mention of my tastes with regard to the strawberry-lemonade beer, I should make a comment lest I forever get pegged as the beer Nazi. But that example is instructive. Within the canon of traditional beer types are nearly every flavor imaginable. Beer is perhaps the most diverse beverage on the planet. I’m all for that.
Where breweries lose me is when they design beer to taste like something other than beer. That gets compounded when a large brewery is trying to “expand the segment” by inventing a product to appeal to people who dislike beer. You are definitionally not making beer if that’s the explicit goal. Whatever. Who cares what I think? The business will continue to regularly generate wine coolers and Zimas and alcopops and strawberry lemonade malt beverages. I’m not worried about it influencing the direction of beer–but I guess I do reserve the right to dismiss it.
That’s what’s interesting and exciting to me about the Black Crown. Based on descriptions, it sounds like a baby step away from the flagship, and probably not a beer I’ll love. But look at the other Bud, the Ceske Budejovice one. It only has 22 IBUs. You don’t have to accept the craft beer terms of the debate to make really interesting beer. Bud could conceivably begin to make interesting, totally Budweiser-like products that attracted lots of people who don’t like, what, Original Bud. That would be very interesting diversity. Way more interesting than strawberry lemonade beer.
Interesting addition to the conversation today in the Boston Globe Sunday magazine:
Subhead: On Super Bowl Sunday, one of drinking’s big nights, a plea to leave the elitism at the door
From the article: The definition of “craft” will come into play in a big way tonight when Anheuser-Busch officially debuts an ad for Black Crown, a new lager with “more body, color, and a touch more hop character” than its flagship Bud lager. The beer is certainly not craft by definition, but it could be the first beer of its kind the general public will ever try. And that’s why some in the craft beer industry will loathe it: For years, high-quality beer, much of it brewed closer to home, has been getting passed over on store shelves.
The Black Crown commercials last night definitely were not intended to “speak” to me. And what was up with the the Sapphire ad?
They made a beer for music video extras and they’ve been waiting on their input since the 1970’s.
Here’s to their kind of beer.
I also enjoyed 63118. I’m surprised 91406 ended up the winner, since I felt it was the weakest of the bunch. But I’m probably not exactly their target demo.
Have you noticed Boulevard’s aggressive pricing lately? I’ve seen them for barely over $6 for a 6er in Springfield. Do you know if they’re in trouble and scrambling for revenue, or if they’re just flexing their muscles to steal some market share?
I bring this up because if I want an American-style lager, I’d go for Boulevard’s Pilsner over 63118, because it’s better and cheaper.
Funny thing, Nate. I tried that side-by-side. I liked the aroma of 63118 better, but by the time I got to the bottom of the glass Boulevard was the winner. I hate to use the word “drinkable” – because what does it mean? – but Boulevard seemed more “drinkable.” And that’s supposed to be Bud’s specialty.