Daily Archives: June 12, 2008

Bud suffers from a geezer mentality.

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I grew up on Budweiser beer. Clean, crisp beer. Clydesdales. American colors. No after-taste. Man, it was a great beer on a hot day. Still is.
 
Today, Budweiser and the Anheuser Busch Company are being pursued by InBev, a Belgium company, and number 3 brewer worldwide.   It didn’t have to come to this.  Over the last 15 years Anheuser Busch took its eye off the ball.
 
The latest generation of Buschs let the master brand Budweiser diminish in importance, while building up Bud Lite.  The assumption was the old boys would keep drinking Bud and live forever, so they focused their resources on Bud Light but got in a slug fest with Coors Light. Budweiser sales waned. Moreover, they never understood how to create a brand extension in the craft category. And every year AB spent millions and millions in Super Bowl commercials and thought they were innovating, reading all their great advertising press.  Finally realizing their folly, AB attempted to get younger with Bud.TV, but it was too late and way out of touch. Geezer mentality.
 
If they can bring this thing back, and I dearly hope they do, AB really needs to understand the next generation beer consumer. It’s a BIG market they don’t want to cede to InBev.