How Beer is Like Marketing

by Alan Belniak on June 25, 2010 · 9 comments

in business, Marketing

NPR posted a story about the changing tastes in beer recently, and instantly as I heard it, I thought “that’s just like marketing.”  Here’s how.

Go ahead and jump to the story, then come back.  We’ll wait.  It’s a short read or listen (just under four minutes).

One of the lines that made me shake my head was this one:

“The company is rolling out a new brand called Batch 19, but most of the innovation focuses on packaging and ads. New packaging is a relatively low-cost way for a company to show it’s doing something new, and it might generate short-term buzz.“

Honestly?  This is something that to me (and I really hope to most people) is so transparent.  It’s shameful that multi-kajillion dollar companies are really spending time and money on a vortex bottle.

vortex bottle

One of the lines that made me smile is this (emphasis added by me):

“The owner of Pike Brewing Co., Charles Finkel, oversees every detail of production at his microbrewery. He’s been in the craft beer business for decades, and he dismisses the innovations being trumpeted by the major brands. “It [commercial-style beer] has nothing to do with what is the raw material, where does the barley come from, what hops do they use, and how much hops do they use,” Finkel says.“ Ahhhhhh!

This is a problem that faces many companies today.  They are looking for fractions of margin points to gain, so they adjust the make-up and lipstick and tease the hair.  That’s not solving any problem.  People will see through that.  The upstarts (craft brewers, in this case), are offering a better product.  They use better ingredients, spend lots of time to craft the recipe, understand (and explain) the style and from where the ingredients come.  In essence, they are offering more content… better content.

The kicker of this story is that in a time where most typical beer sales are down, craft beer sales are up.  Huzzah!  Craft beers are typically more expensive (see the NPR story for the details).  So, even when wallets are thinner, people are still spending more money on craft beers, because they are willing to spend more on content, not packaging.

Marketing is the same.  You can a 3% off promo, introduce a new vortex bottle, or re-run the same lackluster webinar (but… at a new time!).  At the end of the day, if the content is still so-so, people will see through that.  Instead, spend more time on crafting better quality content for which people will willingly pay a premium.

(Definitive Ale has a nice post about this topic as well: http://definitiveale.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/miller-coors-vortex-bottle-shows-us-their-true-colors/ , and they are also the image source for this post)

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  • http://www.toolbox.com Brian Gilbert

    Agreed. As an avid homebrewer for many years I know how LITTLE goes into making big volume production beer, and I know how much more gratifying it is to make 5 gallons at a time and completely nail the effect you were going for. Plus people think you’re cool and invite you to parties and stuff, but that’s a different story…

    Marketing is the same way – lame efforts at repackaging and repurposing content that’s borderline weak to begin with serves nothing. Develop content that truly resonates with the audience and breaks new ground, and people will notice and respond.

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  • matt k

    Nice work. Sticking with the beer topic, beer consumers will never be one demographic. There will always be beer nerds, and there will always be Bud/Bud Light-only people. I wonder how big the crossover market is. But in the grand scheme of things, the domestic beer drinking population dwarfs any other segment of the market. If you haven’t seen Beer Wars yet, put it in your Netflix queue. It is eye opening. It made me angry with the big companies and made me like Sam Calagione (Dog Fish Head) even more, as if I needed a reason…that dude is awesome.

    On the marketing side, I agree with you Al. It is often just a phony repackaging. Vortex bottles, air vent cans, etc. But I don’t fault them for it. They really just need air time for their brand, and it’s a cheap way to make it seem like they’re doing something new.

  • Dave

    My new favorite is the window in the coors light box that lets you see if your beer is cold and/or if your refrigerator is working. “My beer has been in the fridge for 5 days, I wonder if it’s ready. I could touch it or drink it, but there has to be a better way!”.

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  • http://www.ptc.com Rachel Nislick

    It’s finding the time to do it that is key. Where does the time come from if you don’t have the time? And if you’re already behind before you even start?

  • http://www.subjectivelyspeaking.net Alan Belniak

    @Rachel: I guess if you spend (making up numbers for illustrative purposes) 20 hours on 10 so-so campaigns, instead spend 19 hours on 7 so-so campaigns. Drop 3, and use the extra to just think, rather than cranking through another whitepaper, powerpoint deck, or whatever mindless, value-subtract drivel that is appropriate for your industry. I know… easier said than done.

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