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A beer CEO discovers Marketing 101

11/16/2014

37 Comments

 
Anyone who's studied marketing in the past 40 years has read this man's work. The legendary Jack Trout is widely considered the expert on marketing. His wisdom has appeared in numerous books and articles. In all of that, his focus on differentiation as key to marketing success has been passionate and consistent. It is part of what he calls "the essence of marketing."
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Jack Trout
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From one product category to the next, examples abound of this wisdom paying off for marketers through the years. The beer business offers many such case studies. To cite a few...
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- In the early 1900s, ad pioneer Claude Hopkins, after touring the Schlitz Milwaukee brewery, penned the famous and successful line "bottles washed with live steam" to differentiate the brand.
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- Premium light beer, the last earth-shaking development in the domestic beer business prior to craft beer, came into being on the strength of a breakthrough product- differentiation claim: "Great taste, less filling."

- Every single craft-beer brand (as well as craft beer as an overall concept) follows Trout's basic tenet: Differentiation is key to marketing success. 

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- BigBeer's bright-spot legacy brands at the moment-- Coors Banquet and Michelob Ultra-- both also stand out because their marketing relies on what makes them different and distinctive.
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News to the boss

With decades of proof of the real power of beer brands differentiated on the basis of "intrinsic qualities, ingredients and heritage," it's a little surprising that one of BigBeer's bigshots appears to have only now learned of it. He's out making impassioned speeches telling how differentiating in such a fashion is his latest big idea to restore light-beer momentum, and deal with the growth of the craft beers. 

Real differentiation. Quite a flash of insight!
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The same trade press also just reported that every one of the seventeen brands showing the biggest declines in the beer business right now belongs to BigBeer.

Thank goodness Marketing 101 has finally taken hold. 

Better late than never.

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Distinctiveness: Prerequisite to beer-brand success

11/11/2014

2 Comments

 
Even with a tasty brew in the bottle, predicting new-product success in the beer business is an iffy proposition at best. But finding real and clever ways to stand out from the pack is a key requisite. In fact, if distinctiveness is the heart of marketing, it is the absolute soul of new-product success. 
PictureAnheuser-Busch's recently announced "Oculto."
Case in point: Oculto, the just-announced new brand from Anheuser-Busch.

Designed to capitalize on the fast-growing popularity of Mexican beers, consider its points of distinctiveness (in addition to being imported):

- Ingredients: Infused with flavor from the blue agave plant, the source of tequila.

- Process: Blended with beer aged with wood from tequila barrel staves.

- Imagery: White skull label iconography, capturing a Día de Muertos/Day of the Dead vibe.

- Name: "Oculto" sounds both mysterious and mildly threatening.

- Schtick: The "eyes" on the skull glow green when the beer is cold.

For contrast, consider another recent new beer brand,
Miller Fortune, on the same criteria.
PictureMiller Fortune's fortune: No "scale."
Designed to capitalize on the growth in popularity of hard liquor among young adults,
but where was the distinctiveness?

- Ingredients: None featured.

- Process: Though no specifics were provided, it was called "undistilled." (But then, no beer is ever distilled.)

- Imagery: Blackness (like Budweiser Black Crown, among others.)

- Name: Possibly a veiled booze reference to Fortune Brands which owns Jim Beam.

- Schtick: Recommended serving the beer in a "rocks glass" as you would straight liquor.

Different fortunes?

When "schtick" is a brand's most distinctive feature, it's not a good sign. In the words of the people who created it, after a year, Miller Fortune "failed to achieve scale." This is PR spin for "It was a much smaller idea than we thought." Others outside the MillerCoors world pronounced it a complete loser.

Will Oculto do better?

Let's just say there's a distinct chance it will.

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    The Author

    Dan Fox is a real beer guy.

    For more than half his 30-year career at ad agency, Foote, Cone & Belding, he ran the Coors Brewing account. Leading a group of dozens of advertising professionals, Dan also personally wrote the Pete Coors "Somewhere near Golden, Colorado" commercials, designed the Coors NASCAR graphics, authored sales-convention speeches, and most important of all, formulated marketing strategy for virtually every Coors brand, including Coors Light, Keystone, Killian's Irish Red and more. His proudest achievement? "Our team had every Coors brand growing at once."

    Over his advertising career, Dan was personally involved in the analysis, planning and creation of thousands of ads for a variety of products and services. By way of this blog, he freely shares his expertise about what works, and what doesn't, when it comes to selling beer.

    If you're in the beer-marketing business--or just interested in the subject--you may want to read what "HeyBeerDan" has to say.

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