Over the past few years, the beer industry has struggled to gain volume, as a generation of cross drinkers has shifted their beverage alcohol consumption mix to include more wine and spirits. Certain areas of the beer category have pushed back against this, bringing beer into new (and longstanding) traditions.
That’s why I was somewhat dismayed at the 2016 Budweiser Super Bowl ad. Let me be clear: this has nothing to do with having my feelings hurt or being angry that they are taking shots at competitors like craft brewers. Craft brewers can take it—they took a more direct hit last year and grew at a double-digit pace.
Like any market competitor, Budweiser needs to differentiate itself as a brand, and if its brand managers want to do so by taking shots at craft brewers (small), homebrewers (hobbyists) and imports, that’s their right.
The ad didn’t bother me as a craft proponent—it bothered me as a beer lover. It strikes me as deeply misguided for any beer brand to adopt this type of negative differentiation in an era when all beer companies should be working together to build beer, and when Anheuser-Busch InBev is increasingly playing in the categories they are denigrating.
You think the Shock Top (a Belgian Wit style beer also brewed by AB) brand manager liked the man flicking an orange off his beer? Side rant: I thought we were working to bring young women back into the category? If you want to take shots at fruity drinks, what about a young Millennial woman flicking an orange off her beer, or better yet, a young woman turning down a glass of wine or an umbrella-laden cocktail in favor of a lager?
Most perplexing to me is that there are big swaths of the ABI organization that clearly understand the challenge of building the beer category as a unified front. Felipe Szpigel speaks passionately about Budweiser’s high-end division’s efforts to win new occasions for beer, and the Michelob Ultra ad during the Super Bowl clearly identified its brand proposition without taking shots at other beer brands.
This suggestion isn’t just for the Bud brand managers. As craft brewers move into lagers and other sessionable options, I think it’s equally important for craft lovers to talk about why they love small and local options without denigrating the brands of the large brewers. Lagers and light lagers are still the largest chunk of the American beer health, and its health is important for the beer category writ large.
We should all be working to promote the beverage of beer that we love, and then fighting like crazy to convince others to pick the particular brands we support. Telling beer lovers that one of their reasons to head to the beer aisle in the first place is silly or not masculine comes back to harm everyone in the long run.
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