People used to ask me, back in the days before
The Great Craft Rationalization®*, 'Lew, why don't you ever write about the
regular beers?
Budweiser, Miller Lite, Coors Light; you know, the beers everyone really drinks?!' And although I did write about beers like that
sometimes -- more in a business mode, but I did write for trade journals, so you do; hell, I wrote two
vodka pieces! -- and I made my mark writing about
Yuengling, my response was usually something like, "Well,
what can you say about them? 'Damn, this Budweiser tastes just like the last 100 Buds I've ever had!' They don't change, there's never anything new, and even the people who love them have nothing to say about the flavor past "crisp," "clean," and "great taste, less filling." There's just not a lot to work with there."
We are, after all, ultimately in the story business. Hats off to A-B, who did try to
engage us by flying groups of beer writers to
their hop farm and maltings in Idaho...but then that turned into a
circular firing squad of mutual
ethics accusations and just got ugly. And mostly, beer writers didn't write about mainstream beer.
Well...MillerCoors is
changing all that! I've been seeing the teaser billboards on I-95 in Philly (one of the big Lite markets) for months now, and the
new Miller Lite bottle is finally here! That's right, a NEW BOTTLE!
Hot damn!
Yeah. A new bottle. And they're telling us amazing things about it (add your own excited exclamation points, I already took out most of the capital letters):
Consumers Overwhelmingly Prefer The New Bottle 2:1
We Win With Occasional Drinkers Who Preferred The New Bottle By Over 3:1
We Win With All Ages (21-34, 35-40) Both Groups Prefer The New Bottle To Current
(Younger By 19 Points, Older By 23
We Win With Hispanics:
Hispanics Prefer The New Bottle To Current
By 20 Points
Advantages Of The New Bottle Also Place Us In A Stronger Competitive Standing Relative To Bud Light
WOW! I guess all the beer geeks who say the
different glassware really makes a difference may have a point, and Miller Lite is keying on it.
I'm yanking Miller's chain, but come on, guys... A new bottle? You already did that! Remember the
Vortex bottle, back in 2010? Had a set of spiral grooves on the inside of the neck?
Jay Brooks summed that up pretty well
here, I mean, what's the point of
swirling Miller Lite as it comes out of the bottle, to stimulate the
lack of aroma? Maybe...except I did an
interview that year with the
folks from Owens-Illinois, who
developed the Vortex bottle, that I never found a market for and never released...and it
shines a light on things here. Have a look.
Within
the consumer package and beer industry, people are looking for something new and different. It's important to differentiate. It brings added value and news to the marketplace. The Miller Lite brand has seen a lot of change and not all of it positive. It's innovation in terms of value and news to the brand.
Internal embossing is a tech that Owens-Illinois brought to the marketplace. It's the most significant change to the long-neck bottle since the twist-off cap. The
Vortex bottle is an example of how we can merge the science of glass with the art of package design to bring something the market hasn't seen before.
It's designed to differentiate the brand on the shelf. You get the decorative look, and a flat panel for the labeling. We're working with the customers and letting them lead with that effort.
Now...did you notice?
Nothing about swirling the beer. That all came from craft guys who assumed it had to be for
something. As far as O-I was concerned -- and I was talking to their beer marketing manager and the VP of global innovation -- this was about the
look of the swirl. Even Miller never specifically said that the vortex was
functional. It's about look. It's all about getting you to look at Miller Lite.
No kidding, right? They're
just making up news to get themselves
noticed! Because there's nothing new about Miller Lite!
But what about the
constant stream of one-offs and one-time
seasonals from craft beer?
It's all about the beer! Is it? Or is it about getting you to
notice them, shouting to be heard over the
new darlings -- 16 oz. cans, 'slim' cans, open-top cans, nanobreweries, reality-TV breweries, collaborations -- and then moving on and making something else new?
Look, I
like new beers. It's how things happen. But they ought to have some kind of
intrinsic value. There are an awful lot of "me too" beers out there among all the innovative ones. It's almost reached the point where making a pale ale is innovative, as people run from them to make exotics.
New beer? New bottle?
It's all attention for the brand. Miller Lite spins off way too much money to mess with it; you can't make a craft version (they
tried that; major fail). But the craft brewers look at big crafts who
leaned hard on a flagship -- Sam Adams, New Belgium, Sierra Nevada -- and they see them running into trouble with their
street cred, being passed up as
not really craft. (Admit it, if you haven't
thought that about Boston Lager, Fat Tire, or SNPA, you've
heard someone say it.) And we get new beers that are made
just to have new beers. Better than a new bottle, but...where's it go? BeerAdvocate? Tickerville? Celebrator?
I dunno. It's how things work, but for what part of the market? Who reacts to this stuff, and is it enough to have a real effect? Is it just a new bottle?
*I just made that up, and you know, I kind of like it: it's when, about five years ago at the beginning of the Great Recession (I didn't make that up, apparently that's what we're calling the Wall Street debacle and the Stimuless® (yeah, made that one up too...it never caught on, but I haven't given up) now), craft beer stepped out of the background and became the superhero of the beer category by blasting through a collapsing market with hops-fueled double-digit growth. It's when the industry finally
realized that this wasn't a fad, wasn't going away, and had to be taken seriously...and Blue Moon and Shock Top stopped being redheaded stepchildren at their parent companies.)
