{"id":1776,"date":"2014-05-20T06:00:53","date_gmt":"2014-05-20T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/?p=1776"},"modified":"2014-05-11T09:37:37","modified_gmt":"2014-05-11T14:37:37","slug":"public-opinion-in-this-country-is-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/?p=1776","title":{"rendered":"Public opinion in this country is everything."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"map<\/a>For a number of years the only publicity the beer industry received was either Forbes or Fortune magazines.\u00a0 These highly respected business publications wrote mostly about AB and Miller (part of Philip Morris) and how they were dominating the industry.<\/p>\n

Other beer topics that were included in these publications were Stroh Brewing buying out Schlitz, G.Heileman and its challenges, and Coors Brewing with their eastern expansion.<\/p>\n

It was not until Jim Koch and Fritz Maytag began to\u00a0see success that the media started noticing the coming of craft beers.\u00a0 Add in Michael\u00a0Jackson, who made a good career talking and writing about first, beer styles,\u00a0and later,\u00a0the craft industry.\u00a0 The consumer began to take notice, but it really was not until the\u00a0coming of the internet,\u00a0that allowed the consumer access to the education of beer styles and the brands of the world.<\/p>\n

The NBWA’s public relations campaign\u00a0for decades\u00a0really focused on informing Washington of the economic impact of beer wholesalers.\u00a0 A hot topic was how many\u00a0people were directly and indirectly financially affected using payroll dollars and how much tax dollars were paid, which helped to fight additional tax increases.\u00a0 Not much else.<\/p>\n

Distributors were known in their home markets for their support of worthy causes, charitable events, sports teams, and hosting organizations at their hospitality facilities.\u00a0 Usually the larger the distributors market share, the more involved in the community was the distributor.<\/p>\n

Outside of business publications, the craft brewers really struggled to get out their message.\u00a0 Their early attempts with state legislators usually fell on deaf ears and led nowhere.\u00a0 Slowly, however, that started to change.<\/p>\n

Lead by Jim Koch, and soon followed by craft brewers including Sam Calagione, Gary Fish, Larry Bell, Steve Hindy, Kim Jordan, and Ken Harrison, to name a few, these successful craft brewers became media darlings.\u00a0 To the media, their story was compelling, thus leading the public to become aware of the breweries\u2019 stories and these brewers told of the difficulties they were having with the beer laws.<\/p>\n

Politicians saw all the new jobs being created, the taxes being paid, and the local support of all their constituents for these breweries.\u00a0 They started to pay attention and then these breweries\u00a0began to get their ear.<\/p>\n

In recent years, craft brewers began writing books, being interviewed on TV, some have their own shows, and are even writing op-eds in the major papers.\u00a0 They are speaking not only at beer convention, but in other venues as well.\u00a0 They have become “rock stars” and the face of the beer industry today.\u00a0 They are telling their story!<\/p>\n

With the advent of remarkable growth of local craft brewers, one or more in almost every community, these local brewers have connected with their community on a level the beer industry has not seen since before prohibition.\u00a0 Consumers connect with these brewers.<\/p>\n

Locals visit these breweries and sample their beer.\u00a0 The consumers hear their story and challenges.\u00a0 They follow their local brewery on social media and talk to them.\u00a0 They become part of them!\u00a0 And the local politicians know this.<\/p>\n

This is really the\u00a0personification of “grass-roots” marketing.\u00a0 No matter how the NBWA approaches today\u2019s issues, they are, in fact, losing the PR battle to craft brewers.\u00a0 This is going to continue in the beer industry in the short term and as for the craft brewers, public opinion in this country is everything.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a number of years the only publicity the beer industry received was either Forbes or Fortune magazines.\u00a0 These highly respected business publications wrote mostly about AB and Miller (part of Philip Morris) and how they were dominating the industry. Other beer topics that were included in these publications were Stroh Brewing buying out Schlitz, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2xRTi-sE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1776"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1776"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1795,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1776\/revisions\/1795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}