Chris Prangel, a recent MBA graduate, has returned home to West Virginia to manage the marketing operations of the Mountain Man Beer Company. This is a family-owned business that he’s going to take a hand on in 5 years.
Mountain Man brews just one beer which is Mountain Man Lager, also known as "West Virginia 's beer" and popular among blue-collar workers. Mountain Man Lager is a beer known for its authenticity, quality and toughness. It had a distinctive bitter flavor, slightly higher than average alcohol content and was considered a strong working man’s beer. Beer had certain awards as the “Best beer in West Virginia” for 8 straight years. It was also rated as the “Best beer in Indiana”, “America’s championship lager”, “Best known
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What about these factors enabled MMBC to create such a strong BRAND?
Mountain Man Beer Company is brand with concept of high alcohol content, strong and masculine beer for blue-collar workers.
Brand equity created by values brought by producer and going from customer.
Key factors for Brand equity: * Value (beer for blue-collar workers) * Brand Strength (associations and attitudes of the consumers) * Brand Description (strong taste, high alcohol content)
What has caused MMBCs decline in spite of its strong brand?
Youngsters usually prefer light beer that has more soft taste and less alcohol content.
From Exhibit 3 we may observe beer market share in East Central Region. Obviously, light beers such as Anheuser-Busch or Miller takes first places when 2nd tier Premium & Popular Brewers following 4th after light beers.
Exhibit 5 shows us consumption by Type of Beer and Origin. Changes in beer drinkers’ preferences were a mean reason of declining sales. Light beer sales were growing at an annual rate of 4% per year, while traditional premium beer sales have declined annually by the same percentage. The light beers had already risen to 50.4% of total beer sales. The demand for import and craft beer was increasing. Heavy discounting on beer had caused larger beer producers to put pressure on smaller ones. Younger drinkers who were not main Mountain Man customers represented only 27% beer sales.
MMBCs
• The demand of American beer has been increased in Europe, Asia and South America.
Major competitors in light beer are Anheuser Busch, Miller Brewing, and Adolf Coors, representing 74% of beer shipments in Mountain Man’s region.
4. Maintain brand equity with the distinctive bitter flavor and slightly higher-than-average alcohol content of Mountain Man Lager.
Boston Beer Company (BBC) has enjoyed much success with their craft beers with Samuel Adams as their main focus. Being the leader of this segment, overtopping five of their competitors combined (Exhibit 1), the company now must decide how to take advantage of the light beer market. Boston Lightship, their current light beer, had been a small contributor in BBC’s product line. Currently, it is facing dwindling sales with product volumes down from 12 000 cases per month to 3000 cases per month.
Per capita beer consumption in the country had been stable for many years. In order to find new opportunities
Even though their shipping costs were twice the industry’s, average shipping costs would have been much more had they attempted to enter other states. Besides, Coors made up for the inefficiency with the scale of their plant, the largest in the nation. The location lent itself well to Coors’ ability to differentiate its product. For example Coors was brewed using “pure Rocky Mountain spring water.” Coors had a great opportunity to serve an underserved geographical market. Seven of 24 million barrels sold in the region had to be imported from production facilities outside of the region, and Coors’ Colorado facility was more central to the area than the three other closest facilities in Missouri, Texas, and Wisconsin. Coors had the second lowest production cost per barrel in the industry, in spite of their claim of the most expensive raw material costs. Their cost advantage stemmed from the industry’s highest capacity utilization, economies of scale through the country’s largest brewery, single product focus, and the industry’s fastest packaging lines. Matching their low production cost was the lowest advertising cost relative to the industry. The mystique that had been built up about Coors and their differentiating, all-natural appeal allowed them to get away with lower advertising costs than average for the industry. Coors differentiated their product, both in the
One of the weaknesses to distributing Coors beer in the two counties is the competition of other domestic and microbrew beers. Although the consumer and retailer willingness to buy Coors beer is high, will they actually purchase Coors beer when it becomes available to them? The questionnaires have strong feedback for Coors beer in the Delaware counties but people may become biased by their customer loyalty to other beer brand. There is a big enough marker share for Coors to be implemented, but will Brownlow be able to succeed in this competitive 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
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.
The memorandum will analyze the proposed new product launch of Mountain Man Light (MMLight) for Mr. Chris Prangel, the future owner of the Mountain Man Beer Company (MMBC). More specifically, the memorandum will consider the advantages and disadvantages of launching MMLight, as well as a cost-volume-profit analysis of the proposed new product launch. The memorandum will conclude with recommendations for Mr. Prangel’s consideration.
Mountain Man had high quality product. Those attributes included the smoothness, percentage of water content, and drinkability. The beer it produced was flavorful and bitter-tasting. Mountain Man had a well-known reputation as quality bee throughout the East Central region.
iii. Import beer companies: These companies include Beck’s(Germany), Heineken (Holland) and Corona (Mexico). They control about 12% of the region’s market. However, these companies are seen to operate at disadvantage due to higher shipping costs, weaker distribution networks and an inability to control product freshness
With Mountain Man Beer Company (MMBC) experiencing recent declining sales for the first time in its history representing a 2% loss in revenue the previous year and prospect of continuous decline, Chris is considering launching Mountain Man Light Beer as a brand extension aligned with changes in beer drinkers’ preferences, seeking to maximize market coverage while minimizing brand overlap and at same time avoiding any brand equity damage, as its core consumer segment is quite different from the new targeted consumer segment.
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).
Beer Company 2 is a brewer of “seasonal and year-round beers with smaller production volume and higher prices” that “outsources most of its brewing activity” (pg. 120). It is financially conservative, and has undergone a “major cost-savings initiative to counterbalance the recent surge in packaging and freight costs” (pg. 120).