Some would say Samuel Adams' founder, Jim Koch, created the craft-beer craze. Once a "little guy," he regularly contrasted his brewery with the big guys. "They spill more in a day than we brew in a year." Alas, what goes around, comes around. The hundreds of upstart craft breweries now routinely turn their noses up at Sam Adams, snarkily claiming it's grown far too big to be "real craft." Sic transit, beer fame. Once the darling of the beer business as well as Wall Street, Sam Adams has fallen on hard times.

Aiming to turn things around, at least with Wall Street, Boston Beer Company recently romanced stock market analysts giving them a preview of some new ads, and fronting their new marketing honcho. So, how'd that sell-job go? Did the Wall Street types buy the spin?

According to a report in Beer Marketers Insights...

"We walked away with a better understanding of SAM’s turnaround strategy," gushed one analyst. She went on, the brand's “New brand messaging appears a step in the right direction....”

Another analyst was similarly impressed with SAM's "refocusing the marketing more towards the experiential side of the spectrum."

A third Wall Streeter professed his high regard for "new marketing initiatives and brand  messages...." and went on to predict all this will "connect better with cultural trends."

Turnaround strategy... new messaging... refocusing towards the experiential side... new marketing initiatives... connecting with cultural trends. Pretty much every buzzword in the lexicon of today's marketing lightweights. 

The analysts bought this nonsense hook, line, and sinker.

And Sam Adam's new marketing guy was lauded for bringing "an outsider’s perspective"--likely meaning he's never been closer to beer marketing than calling for one at the bar--likely before he moves on to fruity cocktails.

We at HeyBeerDan, on the other hand, are delighted to call ourselves beer guys. And we have our own views about what sells beer. Genuflecting before "the experiential side" is decidedly not among them. 

A different take

Here's one of the new Sam Adams ads that was previewed for the analysts and prompted their gushing.

What's the message here? A beer for summer? (And what brand isn't for summer?) "Three new colors; same great taste." Three new colors... of what?!? Beer? Bottles? Just the labels?

Nothing unique. Nothing interesting or provocative about the beer itself. Nothing but a bunch of gimmicky video tricks. How this lack of focus qualifies as "connecting better with cultural trends" is anybody's guess.

​Nothing here will sell any beer.

Compare that to another craft brand's latest ad. This from the tiny brewer run by a Busch heir...

Singular focus on an attribute of the beer that's likely to get attention from beer drinkers. Certainly from those in and around St. Louis, where Kraftig distributes all its beer.

We'd wager Wall Street analysts rarely get to St. Louis. Probably not "experiential" enough for them.

A pretty common lament we regularly hear from our friends in the beer business goes something like this: "Whatever happened to really good beer ads?" We've commented on this dearth of exceptional, inspirational, truly exciting beer ads ourselves. When was the last time you saw any beer ad that qualified as "clever?"

And now, Beer Marketers Insights headlines this: "NFL Welcomes Booze Ads this Year; More Bad News for Beer."

HeyBoozeDan sees this news differently. In our view, the more liquor ads, the better. And here's why: Unlike so many of the folks running marketing for the big beer brands these days, the liquor guys know exactly how to sell their wares.

Smirnoff knows how to sell against the craft beer goofiness (Oops. In their case, it's craft vodka goofiness) with compelling statements about their own distinctiveness...

A less well-known (for now, anyway) rum mixes the excitement of its big-time sponsorship with their brand's product distinctiveness in another effective ad...

An even lesser-known rum goes "outside the lines" for a distinctive anti-establishment send-up that could've once been a Miller Genuine Draft ad...

One of the best-known and most successful booze brands in America demonstrates something beer marketers used to know how to do: Having fun with a clever product-distinctiveness message...

And finally, in an ad we've admired before, an Irish whiskey brand captures, dramatizes, and associates masculinity with itself in the clever sort of ad beer marketers once would've aired...

So, how can we possibly suggest these very clever booze ads aimed
​--and very likely to be successful--at stealing business from beer marketers could possibly be good for the beer guys? Easy.

Three words: Watch... and re-learn.