05/05
WTF is Happening to Marketing in the Beer Industry
How often do you see a way of working, a piece of content, poor decisions within marketing and think WTF? We bet it happens a few times a day (if not hourly.)
Well, in the spirit of Larry David, Pio and Lee are going to call out the WTF’s they see on a monthly basis and share some thoughts about what those companies should be doing differently.
At minimum, hopefully they'll at least make you laugh and have you realize you’re not alone in thinking WTF. (On that note, if you have any topics in marketing and you say to yourself, WTF, let us know and we might just write about it.)
We will start our first article with something light.
WTF is happening to marketing in the beer industry.
PIO: Lee, you clearly have drunk more than your share of beer and spent a lot of time in the industry. I remember growing up in London where beer ads from Guinness to Courage to Heineken were justifiably famous and a huge part of culture. Same here in the US. But no longer. Remember when beer marketing was the best in the world?
LEE: Yeah, I do. I spent my formative advertising years facilitating arguments on whether Miller Lite was better because it tasted great or because it was less filling. Back then, brands knew who they were and how to create culture. It is astonishing to see how bad beer marketing has become.
Budweiser (not to beat a dead horse), is a great example. Their DNA was the Great American Lager. They embodied Americana and an inclusive–all are welcome–American point of view.
They were at the heart of culture for decades. Sometimes it was just fun culture creating work, like their famous frogs campaign. But other times they took strong points of view on culture, but did it in a way that was authentic to Budweiser and hard to argue with.
A great example is how they took on immigration at a time immigrants unfortunately were being dehumanized (which unfortunately is still the reality today) and was at the center of political debate/policy, about 2017. They did not come out and make a direct political statement that would alienate their base. Instead, they told their founding story, which was a story of immigration and the American Dream. They took on the issue through their brand DNA in a way all Americans (almost all) could relate to and have empathy for.
PIO: Totally agree with you for once, but don't get too used to that. You know the work I absolutely loved was the Stella Artois work. They took a huge disadvantage (high priced premium beer), made it their main selling point (“Reassuringly expensive”) and created some amazingly funny and bold work that made the brand a cultural talking point.
LEE: I loved how they took every aspect of the brand–the beer glass ”Chalice”, the beer skimmer, the pour, the artisanship and made every aspect of the brand touch points reinforce the brand promise of why you should pay more for their product. Horizontal marketing at its funniest and best.
Of course if we’re talking about a brand who really worked within, and cemented, their DNA, it would be careless of us not to talk about Corona.
Corona really knew who they were. They used their geography (Mexico) and translated it into their brand promise of an escape–a vacation in a bottle. Arguably, they’ve done the best job keeping that DNA intact, despite wandering a bit along the way. I loved their old line “Miles away from Ordinary” that cemented their DNA followed by “Find Your Beach”.
But Pio, what the hell happened to this iconic industry with these iconic brands? How is it not just one brand, but an industry of icons that have completely lost their way? Truly WTF.
PIO: Well, Lee, I certainly don’t envy these brands given the pressures they’re under.
The category is really beginning to shift especially with younger generations looking at alcohol in general as an issue and either abstaining or switching to healthier alternatives for relaxation like cannabis–so how do you create the occasion where beer is the indispensable ingredient to fun?
But my non-beer drinking self also sees a couple of other things so take this outsider perspective with a grain of salt..
LEE: I take everything you say with a grain of salt.
PIO: Ignoring the rude interruption to my sage observation….
The most obvious one to me is a lot of companies chasing cultural appropriation instead of culture creation. It’s what we observed with the Super Bowl earlier this year. Celebrity use as a substitute for a good idea (that recent god awful Guiness spot with Jason Momoa also comes to mind) but also chasing volume growth at the expense of your DNA.
This is where I think Bud Light really stumbled–trying to expand the audience but forgetting who the actual current consumer base was and their relationship with the brand. Coke did this too trying to be hip and edgy in the early 2000s and alienated their core audience horribly. Thank God social media wasn't around then, otherwise heads would truly have rolled in Atlanta.
Also, I think beer advertising in agencies was the account to work on. You'd have the Top 10 creative teams competing fiercely to work on the brand. But with big holding companies ruling the roost and trying to keep every client, the work has also ironically become safer whilst trying to be cultural. A dicey combo.
But what do you think they should do differently?
LEE: To me, it really comes down to three core actions and let me explain it through the lens of another category and brand - CPG and ketchup.
I think what Heinz did is brilliant and an example of an old classic CPG brand who was hurting, but remembered their core DNA and then contemporized the brand through culture today. This recipe probably could be repeated for the beer industry.
- Identify what has happened in your category that threatens or is hurting your business. For Heinz, given the current inflationary environment, people are looking for ways to save money any which way they can; driving people to choose generic, cheaper ketchup brands.
- Remember who you were and when you were at your best. Heinz did what every company needs to do when looking to revitalize their business: go back to their DNA. For Heinz, at the end of the day, it’s not ketchup unless it’s Heinz. They had to remind people of their absolute love of the product and the brand.
- Determine a contemporary way to create culture that is true to your DNA and addresses your core business issue. Through social media, Heinz learned about all of the crazy rituals and dedication their fans had of their brand. So rather than creating traditional advertising, they created content within 5 days of their fans’ Heinz social posts. Each post highlighted the fans' love of Heinz. This is a great example of Heinz knowing who they are and using the stories of their fans that brought their DNA to life to contemporize their brand. McDonalds has done the same thing with Famous Orders.
PIO: Nicely said. It’s also virtually the playbook for how we revitalized Coke.
But all this beer talk has made me thirsty. Cocktails?
