Brand Wars

Prior to this year's Super Bowl, I had no idea that corn syrup was an ingredient in beer. But like most Americans, I was confronted with this fact (over and over) as Bud Light rushed to smear Coors and Miller Lite. Being anything but a fan of Bud Light, I can't say the ads had much of an effect on me. However, I did feel the shot across the bow that Miller and Coors must have felt (and in much greater magnitude). As I read today's WSJ, I learned that Bud Light had not only angered Miller and Coors by this attack because of its surface level implications, but, more importantly, because the major beer brands had actually been working in concert, behind the scenes, to launch a Got Milk? type campaign, to help combat the waning consumption of beer. In fact, while other forms of alcohol have largely been on the rise since the 1960's, beer consumption has only dropped since the 1990's. In order to get ahead of this trend, it appears that the major beer companies wanted to pool their marketing budgets and reaffirm that beer was the right choice for the American alcohol consumer. Bud was now threatening this alliance and showing that it could not play fair.

Much of the discussion in the wine class, particular about the "buzz" wars with cannabis, has obvious parallels. However, since wine has so many more producers and actually thrives on variety, it seems that a similar campaign would actually be much more possible and productive. An alliance of wineries across the US could easily drum up significant financial support and could also raise awareness of the benefits of wine. The campaign could easily be structured around health benefits, paired with regional travel or even push forward environmental awareness based on the practices of viniculture. Without even having to come out and criticize other buzz-generating products (i.e. not taking the Bud Light approach), wine could come out as a step above the other buzz items (which is entirely on brand).