UPDATE: It appears that Jeff at GoodGrape already covered this story yesterday and in more detail than I have here. Have a look at his take here. I got scooped hard. Sucks to be me!
A year back wine overtook beer as the adult beverage of choice. Then this year beer stormed back to regain its crown. In a recent article in the Press Democrat, a marketing expert gives his theory for beer’s resurgence and lays out why wine’s “free ride” may be over.
Beer companies lost market share to wine and spirits largely because their advertising campaigns in the 1990s and early 2000s were sophomoric and failed to deliver a message about the quality of their products, Gajrawala said.
To support his contention, Gajrawala played a compilation video of beer ads that showed bikini-clad women wrestling, overweight male sports fans in full-body paint, and men driving golf balls in ludicrously inappropriate places.
“A 23-year-old doesn’t want to identify with that,” he said.
Gajrawala then played newer campaigns by major beer companies like Coors and Budweiser, which he said are hipper and more likely to appeal to the millennials. The new ads are an indication brewers have learned the error of their ways, he said.
“Clearly, you can see the beer companies have changed their strategy in terms of how they are going after consumers,” he said.
That’s important for the wine industry because if the beer industry and its massive marketing clout does a better job of keeping young drinkers well into adulthood, wine may have a tougher time growing at the rates it has enjoyed, he said.
“The free ride for wine is probably over,” he said.
While I think that beer will always have an advertising advantage over wine, wine has every chance to out-serve and out-PR beer. Advertising isn’t what it used to be, as savvy marketers have been pointing out for the past 5 or so years. So while it is discouraging that beer makers aren’t shooting themselves in the foot anymore with sophomoric lowest-common-denominator TV commercials, the ads themselves will continue the trend of declining influence with consumers.
That leaves wineries, especially small ones, with the ability to out-market breweries one-to-one via the tasting room, through exceptional customer service and superior quality and variety.
