{"id":1882,"date":"2014-07-01T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/?p=1882"},"modified":"2014-06-30T07:56:03","modified_gmt":"2014-06-30T12:56:03","slug":"i-stopped-prediciting-the-future-a-long-time-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/?p=1882","title":{"rendered":"I stopped prediciting the future a long time ago."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Miller<\/a><\/p>\n

In the early 1970s, Miller Brewing Co. chose Austin as one of the test markets for Miller Lite.\u00a0 Those of us that were selling beer at the time could not figure out why the consumer would buy a beer that had less alcohol and was priced 10 cents (yes, that’s right) higher than regular beer.\u00a0 Every one of us predicted that Lite would not be a success.\u00a0 So much for that prediction!<\/p>\n

Recently at Beer Insights Conference<\/em> in Chicago, some predictions were made on a number of issues facing the beer industry.\u00a0 While many of these are trending to be true, there are some that might have unknown ramifications.\u00a0 Either way, they are currently relevant to all in the industry and need to be addressed.<\/p>\n

A number of speakers addressed the future of mega brands.\u00a0 All agreed that going forward there are not going to be any mega brands.\u00a0 Perhaps the industry should look at spirits and wine; there is a mega brand or leader in every category.\u00a0 There will be a leading IPA, as with an amber ale, wheat beer, porter, etc.\u00a0 There may never be a brand as large as Budweiser or Corona, but there will be mega brands and they will be highly sought after.<\/p>\n

If, as predicted, distributors become more beverage-centric and concentrate on spirits, wine and non alcs,\u00a0then the question becomes, how does franchise protection relate to that model?\u00a0 On one hand, you have beer protected by state franchise laws with perhaps some type of carve out provisions, yet all non-beer products are under contractual arrangements.\u00a0 Does this situation cause less focus and\/or investment by the distributor in legacy brewers and megabrands?<\/p>\n

The Millennial generation, ages 16 to 34, consist of 79 million individuals and out-number the Boomers who currently weigh in at 76 million.\u00a0 The under LDA is roughly 15% of the Millennials, meaning a lot more people are going to be of legal drinking age in the future..\u00a0 Then the question should be, will the industry really lose 14 million bbls.?<\/p>\n

Another topic discussed dealt with carve out provisions. Just how fair are these provisions to larger suppliers?\u00a0 An underlying point to this topic is that distributors believe that without such provisions, crafts would be successful.\u00a0 Conversely, the same is true.\u00a0 What would distributors do without the craft brewers today?\u00a0 And if they continue to grow as predicted, how will their future look?<\/p>\n

The value of any brand that has been terminated is usually established by emotions. Similarly, the acquiring distributor who somehow fell into getting the brand, likewise, determines its value.\u00a0 A final thought, if franchise reform actually becomes reality, will the value of a distributor decline by up to 30%?\u00a0 A business that is cash only (no A\/R), exclusive territory, supported brands through all forms of media and p-o-s, backed by brewery sales teams, great margins and ROI, has little to no downside.\u00a0 To this point, is there anyone out there that would not jump at the opportunity to own a beer distributorship if only they had a contractual relationship with suppliers with no franchise protection?<\/p>\n

The future in beer might best be served with all parties understanding that their relationships are only business and not partnerships.\u00a0 This statement goes to the heart of what is driving most of the issues today.<\/p>\n

The success of Miller Lite was the reason why I stopped predicting the future a long time ago.<\/p>\n

SEE BELOW-A GREAT COMMERICAL<\/p>\n

http:\/\/<\/span>mobiledia.com\/news\/<\/span>199788.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the early 1970s, Miller Brewing Co. chose Austin as one of the test markets for Miller Lite.\u00a0 Those of us that were selling beer at the time could not figure out why the consumer would buy a beer that had less alcohol and was priced 10 cents (yes, that’s right) higher than regular beer.\u00a0 […]<\/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-um","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882"}],"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=1882"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1906,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882\/revisions\/1906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}