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Could Budweiser be better than craft beer?
The simple answer: “It already is.”
The craft beer route to distinctiveness: More flavor = Better beer
Read on.
That provocative question in the headline aims to get at the single greatest marketing challenge facing Budweiser, namely, “How is the King of Beers distinctive?” When a brand lacks distinctiveness– when it does not deliver to its drinkers an experience that stands apart from competition– it is fated to decline. Drinkers will leave for other beers. Which is exactly what’s happened to so many former Budweiser fans over the past two decades. Whatever distinctiveness might have accounted for Bud’s success in the past (we speculated what that might have been), it is now long gone.
Fluffy advertising claims (such as boasts of being the most-popular brand), creative label designs, the brewing process, and ingredients can all contribute to distinctiveness. More critical, however, is the need for real, consumer-perceived distinctiveness based on the drinking experience. Without some positive and real aspect of drinking the beer, smoke, mirrors and boasting will not sustain distinctiveness.
Craft beers nail distinctiveness
Here’s where craft brewers have excelled. They’ve mostly eschewed marketing gimmickry and instead concentrated on giving drinkers more flavor overall, and different flavor notes, in nearly every one of their offerings. In other words, real distinctiveness.
Assuming its brewing recipe won’t be drastically changed, how is it possible, then, for Budweiser to be distinctive anymore? Especially when pundits have already sung its requiem intoning, “Consumer tastes changed.”
Budweiser Rx: Change
Only a fool would expect Budweiser’s fortunes to improve by staying the course. The King of Beers will prevail again only when its taste-experience is seen as distinctive and appealing. It falls to the marketing folks to identify this needed change and figure out how to accomplish it.
The task is to find a desirable aspect of the beer taste-experience on which Budweiser stands apart, and actually excels. As in “better.” An aspect even craft beer’s most loyal geek would have to grudgingly admit is true. An aspect of taste that’s not marketing fluff, but is unquestionably present in Budweiser today. Something important enough to beer drinkers to cause Bud’s fortunes to begin to turn.
As always, the answer must lie in the beer itself. And with some looking, we think we may have uncovered it. Amazingly, from no less a source than Budweiser’s own website:
The “snap.”
Until finding it in a quiet corner of Budweiser.com, I can honestly say I’d never heard that particular descriptor of beer taste. It was news to me, and when you’re setting out to cause change in the market, news is good.
“Snap” is an accurate and intriguing description of an actual taste property of Budweiser: The way the beer’s flavor does not linger cloyingly, but rather disappears in a… snap. The fact that this product characteristic is supported by the use of more expensive rice in the beer’s recipe adds legitimacy and depth to the strategy.
How might this come together in a compelling strategic effort?
Would craft-beer partisans whine? Of course they would. It’s what many of them seem to do best. And they’d certainly counter-argue Budweiser has less taste to begin with. Or they’d proclaim their love for the way their over-hopped beer-choice hangs around on the tongue. Smack-smack. Good for them.
But they all know their favorite craft beers can’t match Budweiser’s snap. No way. And for a good many other beer drinkers — including many still loyal to Budweiser — that snap could just be the ticket to knowing they’ve chosen… a better beer.
Plain water shares this “snap” you hope coin as the next deceptive advertising. No rice required.
Good luck with that.
Plain water is the #1 ingredient in all beer, normally well over 90%. Yet one beer has “snap”.
So, if you’re right, how is it that all the craft beers all manage to eliminate that natural snap?
(Good luck to you, too, sir.)
You’re not going to change Beerdan’s objective anymore than he is going to change the collective mind of those looking for a reason to like what they’re consuming. Inbev will keep a dwindling share of mindless cattle that are fine doing whatever marketing says they should do. More flavored beer for the rest of us.
“Would craft-beer partisans whine?”. Pretty convincing wind-up until this point.
The thought of turning Bud’s lack of taste in to a positive is laughable. You don’t have to be a ‘craft-beer partisan’ to actually want to taste something, anything, in your beer.
And as for the addition of rice, why would this ever be a positive for a brewery? Yes it costs them more to add rice, but it also has no place in beer.
If you can’t taste “anything” in Budweiser, perhaps your taste buds have overdosed.
And if you’re bent out of shape about rice in your beer, are you equally vexed about chocolate, vanilla and raspberry flavors? At least Budweiser doesn’t resort to children’s beer flavors!
HeyBeerDan is right. Bud may be a pretty neutral tasting brew but that’s the very thing that people like about it . I’m not one of those people and I don’t drink Budweiser, but I can still recognize that the ‘BUD’ style of beer is by far the most difficult type to brew, especially with the kind of consistency that the Bud brewmasters (some of the most skilled in the business) are able to achieve.
Besides, craft brewers are guilty of just as much hype as the big brewers when they say craft beer is a guarantee of higher quality. It may be a guarantee of higher price, but it most definitely does not always live up to the quality promise, especially lately with so many hack brewers jumping on the craft bandwagon.
The good ones will survive. The others will mercifully fade into oblivion. The best ones will grow, and then be rejected by the beer geek crowd because they got too big.
The whole thing is kind of funny, actually.
Thanks, Howard. Kindred spirits!
My wanting beer to taste of something line was in reference to the fact the article specifically references Bud’s taste ‘disappears in a… snap’.
And regarding the addition of other ingredients, all of the ones listed (chocolate etc) have actual roles to play in the final taste profile of the beer. I’m not an advocate for German style purity laws and personally don’t like a lot of flavoured beers, I just mean rice has no part to play in brewing when it’s very purpose is to take taste away.
Finally, Budweiser don’t resort to chilldren’s flavour beers? Bud Light Lime etc are just that. Their sole purpose is to recruit younger, non-beer fans to the brand.
You’re right, and have demonstrated it far better than I could possibly do: It’s hard to re-direct the herd..
Since when is rice more expensive than malt? They’ve made it sound like rice is something positive when it is just a cheap adjunct to lower the cost of production.
Rice is not “more expensive than malt.” Malt still is part of the Budweiser brewing recipe. But rice is an additional expense not borne by brewers who choose not to use the grain.
Hey Beer Dan…
I’m going to do my ‘old guy rant’…
I’ve drank Bud my whole life… that, Heineken, Molson, Lowenbrau, Guinness, Harp, Hacker Pschorr.. and a few hundred, if not thousands, of other beers… and, frankly, most ‘beer’ is crap. Most is too heavy, to stinky, too sweet, to bitter…. I like a lager… both smooth and crisp with snap!
I’m in Orlando and there’s a thousand restaurants everywhere here… and they all have 50 or more taps serving what I consider, after drinking most of them, to be ashtray swill. I’ve stopped ‘tasting’ this stuff.. it’s not worth it. If it’s any good at all Inbev will buy it and mass market it. If it’s terrible it’ll be replaced along with 50 others next month. I HATE IPA the most… it’s like enjoying ISLAY Scotch… but I won’t go there.
Now, back to Bud… Growing up the staples were Bud, Molson, Heineken… but, I have to say, it tasted ‘different’ and I don’t know why. I’ve described this as beer used to taste more ‘beery’ than it does today.
Correct me if I’m wrong… Bud tastes different not only in different regions, but from different stores. A gas station on one side of the street has crappy Bud and the next one has good Bud. Wawa has that awesome walk in beer cave but still it’s not always great Bud.
I live near Seaworld. Before Inbev bought Anheuser Busch they focused on promoting AB products by giving out samples. The ‘beer school’ ALWAYS has the BEST, MOST CRISP Bud ANYWHERE… I asked them and they said it’s because it comes directly from the brewery. Makes sense as August Busch IV would regularly fly into the park by helicopter.. he took pride in the parks.
Today, in those few years since Inbev, and it may be coincidental, I can walk into any one of 1000 restaurants and each Bud on tap tastes different… noticeably. From soapy glasses, to line maintenance, to temperature… I don’t know… but I have a handful of places I go where it tastes ‘good’… I can’t imagine how this type of thing affects the hundreds of other brands… no wonder the heavy tastes of new beers is sought after – it drowns out the effects of all the crap the venue does to harm the flavor.. 🙂
Well, that’s my 52 years worth… I only wish the other beer muddlers could’ve tasted that beer school Bud…
Favorite Movie Beer Line… “Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snhiofL2Rh4
I’m not a Bud fan at all so not with you on most of that but I definitely agree when you have a particular beer you drink all the time you can taste the difference at different bars and even stores. I see this the most with Guinness. You definitely notice a difference in taste, color and head between places. And that’s a heavy full flavor beer so it’s not about the full flavor drowning out the nuances in taste that craft drinkers might miss. “Problem” with craft beer is that part of the fun is always trying different beers. So yeah if there is an issue with the tap and your having a beer you’ve never or only few times previously had you’re probably not going to realize.