Sorry troops, I've been absent lately. I'm at school this weekend, and we just finished our marketing class, and had a great tie in to this topic. We were discussing the marketing of beer. I mentioned that Oktoberfest is the best marketing tool available. It generates demand early, keeps us drinking for the next 6 months, and maintains demand during and after the event. What more could you ask for?
Don't know what's up with this educational system, but Operations Management is next, and we'll be talking about the beer distribution model. I love this MBA stuff ! !
3 comments:
My only run-in in MBA school with Beer was the study of breweries & distribution. This was before Microbrew (real ones), and the US was portrayed as having 3-4 big corporate breweries, the UK had large brewers with "Tied Houses" for distribution, and Germany was portrayed as having many breweries, and great diversity.
The making of US mega-beer comes down to marketing and distribution. Taste, flavor, and variety of the chemical substance they ship is irrelevant. Much the same as tobacco, where chemicals & fillers are added, the US mega-beer industry is always looking for ways to make the chemical ingredients cheaper. Why use hops, when you can use hop flavoring? Why barley, when corn and rice are cheaper? Depending on the adjuncts they use, they can tweak the manufacturing process to match the target flavor.
The US would be a much beeter place if not for 3 things:
1. Prohibition, where many smaller craft breweries went usder. My own beloved Stroh's made Ice Cream to survive.
2. WWII. Yes, as the men fols went off to war, the brewers lightened up the flavor, and focused on the light American lager flavor to suit women's tastes.
3. The American trend to suckle at anything that is on TV. Regardless of taste, they want it cheap, and what the NFL says is good. This has given us Bud, Miller, and Coors.
Thanks to microbrew revolution, UK, Belgian, and German brewers to keep real beer on the streets and available.
Hi Chugger,
As I was not aware of any MBA class learning Beer Marketing and Operations Management, I did some surfing and found an interesting link. http://students.olin.wustl.edu/~morganp/beergamenight.htm
I believe it can be of use :)
Hey Barbus......
We did play a beer distribution game which simmulated the brewer/wholesaler/distributor/retailer chain. Our team was the retailer and we won ! ! ! ! We drank the supply instead of selling it !
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