Beer Company Segmentation

In 1844, the Empire Brewery was founded by Jacob Best and his sons in Milwaukee, WI. In 1860, Jacob’s son Phillip took over and renamed the brewery the Phillip Best Company. Phillip’s daughter, Maria married a steamship captain, Frederick Pabst. Captain Pabst sold his shipping interest and bought a partnership stake in the brewery. In 1872, Captain Pabst became President of the company. In 1889, he renamed the business the Pabst Brewing Company.

2. MMBC is ignoring the shift in the consumer segment for beer companies. 21-27 year olds are spending more on liquor and most have not yet developed brand preference.

Using clever and borderline juvenile material Bud Light has seen much success in their targeted consumers in American males of the ages 18-49. With great success we believe Bud Light has the potential to increase its reach and share by advancing marketing opportunities to females and exploiting their other product lines. In doing so Bud Light must take a different approach from its perceived masculinity to an all-around and more suitable approach to our female audience.

     In this paper I will be talking about the U.S. beer industry and in short an overview of the brewing industry worldwide. I will talk about the barriers to entry, economies of scale, government intervention, pricing, current market trends, product differentiation, and imports. The focus being mainly on the U.S. brewing industry oligopoly. The U.S. brewing industry has three major players: Anheuser-Busch, SAB Miller, and Coors/Molson. Anheuser-Busch is currently the largest brewer in the world, producing over 100 million barrels a year. Anheuser-Busch currently owns over 50% of the market in the United States, with Miller trailing behind at 20% and Coors at about 11% with the rest of the market occupied by imports and craft breweries. When analyzing any industry, how easy it is for newcomers to enter the market is a great importance. If there are high barriers to entry

We must verify whether this focused strategy will highlight shared values of the middle-aged, blue-collar persona and the younger, point of entry target without alienating our current consumers. Since there is a dominant social element to our father-son scenario, we can conduct primary, qualitative research in the form of focus groups to verify that men and their sons can enjoy our product in the pub setting, and can develop an emotional bond amongst one another to Roaring Fork Beer. Our two strategies focus on Psychographic, Geographic and Demographic segmentation. Based on the association to blue-collar (psychographic), middle-aged males (demographic) in the Colorado area

Boston Beer Company Mission statement is to “seek long-term profitable growth by offering the highest quality product to the U.S. beer drinker”

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.

could be geared towards females in an attempt to capture drinkers of Coca Cola’s Tab. In addition, males’ ages 35 to 54 consume energy beverages at a rate slightly lower than males under age 24. An energy beverage with similar stimulant effects as most energy drinks but has other health benefits (i.e. Vitamin Water, Odwalla, Naked) could also attract the abovementioned consumers.

According to Fortune Magazine, the company applies venerable marketing techniques more vigorously and imaginatively than the competition. The company’s most important technique is target marketing. Anheuser-Busch sponsors events and runs advertising specifically aimed at all sorts of consumers: blacks, whites, blue-collar workers, computer-buffs, and sports fans. Sports fans make up a large, diverse population. The company has strategically positioned themselves to promote to this target audience, with 70% of their advertising dollars going towards sports programming. They have exclusive deals with 21 of 24 major league baseball teams, 21 of 28 National Football League

Several attempts have been made by Boston Beer Company to continue on a growth streak but not all attempts have been successful. The main goals for Boston Beer Company are to increase revenue and continue growing in the industry. Boston Beer Company has had trouble growing as barriers of entry are low and competition is high. Even though the market has seen a slight upturn, however Boston Beer’s founder Jim Koch elaborates on the company’s dissatisfaction, “We are disappointed with our depletion trends in 2016, which have remained weak so far in 2017. These trends are affected by the general softening of the craft-beer category and cider category and a more challenging retail environment with a lot of new options for our drinkers”. (https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/02/22/boston-beer-finds-growth-the-hard-way.aspx)

The Coors brewing industry had many ups and downs throughout its history dating back to its start in 1873 (Adolf Coors in the Brewing Industry). There were times of great growth and expansion that would get interrupted by numerous setbacks. Some were small and some led to extreme changes. It sounds similar to any type of business. However, the different generations of the Coors family seemed to find ways to usually compete with their competitors and maintain the success of the company. It was also very challenging. Different changes had to be made for each new obstacle that came their way. Over a century has gone by since its start in Golden, Colorado, and the business seems to still be available in stores around the world (Adolf Coors in the Brewing Industry).

The situation can even explode for Export Brands International, as large beers conglomerates with tremendous power, are targeting the same segment and are creating similar beers. We have the real example of Anheuser-Busch new Bud Light Lime which was selling extremely well in the United States attacking Corona position and following the traces of the

Molson Coors ability to create loyal customers contributes to the company being one of the worlds largest brewery companies bringing in $5.6 billion a year in sales. The company employs 11,000 employees with 10 breweries in 3 different countries. Although the company only produces 40 brands of beer, two of them, Coors and Coors Light, were appointed top beer brands form the national customer loyalty study for three consecutive years. SABMiller, who acquired the Miller Brewing Company in 2002, produces over 200 beer brands and brews in over 60 countries. The company decided to specialize in premium brands of beer and were compensated in 2006 with a 19% increase in revenue. The company prides its self on emphasizng the fewer carbohydrates and better taste its line of beers has compared to its competitors. The company proves this with winning the Miller Light Taste Challeng, a point-of-sale taste test. Another competitor of Anheuser-Busch is Heineken NV. Heineken produces 170 beer brands and owns 115 breweries in 65 different countries with 65,648 employees. The company specializes in lagers, speciality beers, light beers, alcoholic-free beers, and soft drinks. Although competition with these companies is combative, Anheuser-Busch (ABI) continues to be the leader in brewery with higher revenues and net income. The company employs over 30,183 in 27 breweries compared to the industries average of 480

A long-term strategic management issue for GM is the increasing global competition due to the mergers and acquisitions of its competitors. The partnership of Heineken and FEMSA (Mexico’s second largest beer company in terms of market share) was formed for the sole purpose to dethrone Corona as the best-selling import beer in the United States. To make matters worse, there were also rumours of large mergers and acquisitions of mid-tier brewers in order to better compete and expand globally. In addition, with the introduction of NAFTA, Canadian and U.S. competitors were slowly beginning to penetrate the Mexican market, which had the potential to chip away at the majority market share GM enjoyed.

Information Technology (IT): The hardware and software technologies a firm needs to achieve its business objectives (Kenneth C Laudon and Jane P Laudon., 2010).