The Marketing Of The Beer Industry

The Boston Beer Company, Inc., founded in 1984, is a leading brewer in United States, offering wide variety of high quality full-flavored, handcraftedbeers. It is distinctive due to the time-honored recipe of brewing and authentic, consistent quality of alcoholic beverages. Samuel Adams Boston Lager is the pride of BBC, regular handcrafted beer “stands for quality, inner self-worth, authenticity, and unique New England or Yankee toughness” ( Martin Roper, Chief Operating Officer). Unfortunately, the company experienced the failure of conquering light beer segment

We’re told that craft beer’s share of the market rose 17.6% last year, accounting for 11% of beer volume and $19.6 billion of the beer industry’s $101.5 billion in sales. However, it’s also a market in which the sale of imported beers rose 6.9% in 2014 and where, according to Nielsen, the amount of Mexican beer alone sold in grocery stores within the last year is equal to the amount of all craft beer sold from supermarket and convenience store beer shelves. It’s also a market where, despite advances by both craft and imported beers, one of every five beers sold is a Bud Light. In fact, the 38 million barrels of Bud Light sold last year would not only make it the No. 3 brewer in the U.S. if it split off from Anheuser-Busch InBev BUD, -0.51%

The Boston Beer Company is the country’s largest producer of craft beer, with their flagship brand being Samuel Adams. An American Craft Brewer is defined as small, independent, and traditional. To be considered these terms, the brewery must adhere to the following guidelines: Annual production of 6 million barrels of beer or less. Less than 25% of the craft brewery is owned or controlled (or equivalent economic interest) by an alcoholic beverage industry member who is not themselves a craft brewer. And a brewer who has either an all malt flagship (the beer which represents the greatest volume among that brewers brands) or has at least 50% of its volume in either all malt beers or in beers which use

In basic terms, Anheuser-Busch can be regarded a market leader in its industry. This is more so the case taking into consideration the company's market share as well as market capitalization. This text analyzes Anheuser-Busch's marketing strategy and type of competition.

A documentary film made in 2009, Beer wars features and describes the American beer industry distinguishing between the large and small breweries. The large breweries feature some main corporate companies like Coors Brewing Company, Anheuser-Busch, and Miller Brewing Company whereas the small breweries include craft beer producers like Moonshot 69, Stone Brewing Company, Dogfish Head Brewery, Yuengling, and others. The documentary shows how the beer market is controlled through advertising and lobbying, which is harmful for the competition in the market. There is a reason why the small companies are falling behind and the large corporates are controlling the market, which in turn makes it essentially oligopoly economy.

In order to grow, Boston Beer must continue to increase its market share in the overall beer market. The market continues to be dominated by the large scale breweries like Anheuser Busch, Adolph Coors Co, and Miller Brewing Co. Craft Breweries are beginning to increase their share in the overall market. It is expected that craft breweries will account for 5% of the overall beer market in 2000, up from 1.4%. However, there is increased competition in the craft beer market. There were 165 new craft brewers in 1994. This increased the total of craft breweries in the US to 750. Boston Beer will be competing with these 750 breweries for 5% of the 5 billion in US beer revenues.

As the world’s largest brewer, AB Inbev has the ability to compete in new and foreign markets as a strong threat. Due to their enormous capital and expansion-based strategy, they can enter any market as a challenger and shutdown competition to become the leading brewer in this market. As an aggregated note we can also see this in domestic or already dominated markets because due to economics of scale they can achieve differentiated products at a low cost.

     The brewing industry was once held to competition among many breweries in small geographic areas. That was almost a century ago. The U.S. brewing industry today is characterized by the dominance of three brewers, which I will talk about in this paper. There are many factors today that make the beer industry an oligopoly. Such factors include various advancements in technology (packaging, shipping and production), takeovers and mergers, economies of scale, barriers to entry, high concentration, and many other factors that I will cover in this paper. Over the course of the paper I will try to define an oligopoly, give a brief history of the brewing industry, and finally to show how the brewing industry today is an

Beer has a long history. In 2000 B.C.E., Sumerians had prepared eight different beer types, ranging from “strong,” “red brown,” and “good dark” (Mauk, 2013). Breweries have created their own recipes, brewed their own beers—some with alcohol, some without. Over the past few years, craft beer gained steady market share away from the national and international breweries (Murray & O 'Neill, 2012). Separating one beer from the next is the product itself, and what the product has to offer. Competition is ferocious due to more informed, sophisticated consumers, as well as globalization and the spread of technology (Murray & O 'Neill, 2012).

MobCraft will partner with retail locations that are in the top 10 for sales revenue of MobCraft products to create signage. These signs will advertise the new products with creative graphics and wordage. A simulated test market will be used in creating the signage and getting consumer feedback before proceeding with this plan. This is a cheaper method of forecasting the effectiveness of signage. The effectiveness will be determined by whether there is an

Problem identification: The global beer industry was experiencing increasing competition due to the new and potential mergers and acquisitions of

Global beer market development over the last 18-24 months has led to the leading players becoming increasingly isolated at the top of the rankings, with little chance of smaller players challenging their hegemony. Even with its sizeable investment, Heineken is struggling to keep in touch with the big three. As such, it is entirely feasible that second tier companies, behind the major three, may group together to amass scale and distribution. One such possible triumvirate is Heineken, Molson Coors and FEMSA.

|The global beer industry is dominated by large corporations who have merged with rivals to increase their global and domestic market share. |

Acquisition, licensing and strategic alliances have all occurred as the leading brewers battle to control the market. There are global pressures for consolidation due to overcapacity within the industry, the need to contain costs and benefits of leveraging strong brands. For example, Belgian brewer Interbrew purchased parts of the old Bass Empire, Becks and Whitbread in 2001 and in 2004 announced a merger with Am Bev, the Brazilian brewery group, to create the largest brewer in the world, InBev. The second

Anheuser, Miller, and Coors all increase their annual marketing share with on-premise marketing. It is something that each of these companies take very seriously and profit likewise.