There was a time when the craft brewers were all about inclusiveness and kindness to their fellows. Back then, craft beer was so new and appealing, virtually every brand was growing. Often, demand exceeded supply. "Marketing" meant picking a funny brand name and some sort of odd graphic for your label. Heck, almost anyone could have been a successful craft-beer marketer back then. 

Standing out means standing... for something

Nowadays, craft beer is no longer posting easy, heady growth numbers. Many large craft brands are declining. And that means real competition has arrived. Say goodbye to the days of "we're all in this crazy craft beer business together" bonhomie. To grow now, a craft brand needs to take business away from another craft brand. That calls for marketing; for deciding on what basis you'll sell your brand as better and distinctive versus the others. And here's where craft brewers, many new to marketing, have run into difficulty.

A few years back, when Budweiser launched its "Made the Hard Way" ads on the Super Bowl making fun of many craft beer selling points. Pumpkin-peach flavor, "sipping," and the like. In response, a group of craft beers funded a spoof-ad response. Take a look...

What's interesting about this video is that it presents the many characteristics that craft beers share. Yes, it does show how, as a group, the crafts are distinctive relative to Budweiser. But it also shows how as individual brands, they're all very much alike. Claims like "full flavor," "brewed by hand,"and "lots of styles," or visual depictions of ingredients, bearded brewers, funky brewery location, copper kettles and the like simply do not differentiate one craft brand from another. So, if you're out to sell your craft beer over another, how will you stand out?

Ballast Point was just like lots of craft brewers

Like many craft brewers, Ballast Point enjoyed a good deal of early success largely on the strength of brewing very good beers. The San Diego-based brand grew rapidly, ultimately attracting the interest of Constellation Brands (Corona, Modelo, etc.) who purchased the small craft brewer for a staggering $1 billion price. Timing is everything. Very little time passed until Ballast Point was suffering from the proliferation of craft brands. The easy money was no longer easy. The brand stalled, and then began declining.

Choosing a selling strategy means choosing not to pursue many others. To succeed, Ballast Point needed marketing to establish a distinctive premise, one to set them apart from other craft brands. One that would appeal to a great many craft-beer shoppers. Said another way, Ballast Point needed to be, not just a craft beer brand, but a craft beer brand that stood for something.

Marketing = selling

In a classic marketing move no doubt driven by Constellation's marketing team, Ballast Point placed their bet on offering an exceptional flavor experience. "What's distinctive about that?" you ask. The distinctiveness comes from the explicit statement--the "reason why" in marketing speak--supplied to support the implicit "We taste best" claim. And while craft brewers often turn their noses up at mainstream marketing, this "rated best" claim is one that has worked in countless competitive categories...

Simple. Clever. Understated. Honest. Most of all, distinctive.

​Will this "close to perfect" distinctiveness claim based on Beer Advocate ratings bring every craft-beer drinker to Ballast Point?

​Wrong question.

​Will it make Ballast Point stand out in a crowded marketplace and, as a result, win more than its share of buying decisions?

​Bet on it.

Year's end is the time when lists get compiled. The year's best sports teams, best movies, best new products and more get chronicled in the press. Apparently, there's something irresistible about such lists.

Tempted as we've been to enter this list-making fray, we've resisted... until now. But since we have our own holiday celebrating to do, we've decided to have just one list, and just one entry on that list. This, of course, cuts down on our work, but it also respects the time demands on you, the reader.

So we've chosen to focus on the dumbest statement made by a beer-industry executive in 2017. As fate would have it, without having to do a bunch of research, the hands-down dumbest quote just arrived in our mailbox courtesy of Beer Marketers Insights. We owe them our thanks for this remarkable time-saver.

The "winner" is...

From the guy responsible for marketing the largest beer brand in the country, a brand that continues to post sales declines of 5-6%--a staggering (!) 1.9 million barrels of beer volume lost in the current year alone--comes this...

Clearly management is desperate to find good news... any good news. The brand is on its third or fourth consecutive advertising campaign, each one aimed at reversing the sales decline. And each one--including the latest, "Dilly-Dilly"-- a failure on that account. Sales continue to fall. And so the marketing geniuses seize on two "measures" they believe are moving in the right direction: buzz, and enthusiasm by their ad-agency's creative people. 

Desperation, meet stupidity

Measure #1: As we have chronicled before, "buzz"--the talk on the street, or on television, or even in games being played in bars-- has no marketing value unless it is correlated to sales gains, the only consequential measure of marketing success. By itself, buzz ain't biz.

Measure #2: Citing creative people having a good time making these insipid Dilly-Dilly ads, and suggesting their "having a blast" is somehow good for Bud Light, is an obscene insult to marketing in general. Heck, it's insulting to anyone with an I.Q. above single digits. Ad-agency creative people are paid handsome salaries to create advertising that sells beer. "Having a blast" is what they do after work, over alcohol beverages (although rarely beer) and banned substances. But maybe in this particular case they should be giddy. After all, they have a client so clueless as to spend millions and, rather than hold them accountable for sales results, he celebrates their... celebrating.

The end 

This will all end badly. If Bud Light's ads haven't improved sales by now, adding more of the same sort of pointless humor won't move the needle. Of course, that won't stop the marketing folks, just as they continued to spend on the three earlier failed campaigns. Such is desperation in extremis. So, expect more of these ads.

Just remember, the ad-agency people are really enjoying themselves!