{"id":3671,"date":"2016-10-04T06:00:13","date_gmt":"2016-10-04T11:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/?p=3671"},"modified":"2016-10-02T18:11:39","modified_gmt":"2016-10-02T23:11:39","slug":"i-learnt-the-hard-way-about-positioning-in-business-about-catering-to-the-right-segments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/?p=3671","title":{"rendered":"I learnt the hard way about positioning in business, about catering to the right segments."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"unnamed\"<\/a>At last week\u2019s NBWA convention in Chicago, much of the talk among distributors and speakers centered around the current performance of the craft segment. \u00a0Both the scan numbers and data show a slowdown in craft volume sales and, the numbers show that the slow down seems to be accelerating during this second half of the year. \u00a0Yet, there are still craft sales that go unreported, such as brewery tap rooms. \u00a0Getting a handle on just how the craft segment is doing is difficult, at best.<\/p>\n

At one time, defining beer segments was easy. \u00a0There was the premium segment, mostly made up of Budweiser, Coors, Miller, Schlitz, and Pabst. \u00a0There was the price segment, dominated by Busch and Old Milwaukee and malt liquors, dominated by Schlitz Malt Liquor. Rounding out the segments, one must not forget the imports, predominantly Heineken, Beck’s, the Canadian selections, and a few Mexican beers. \u00a0Regional or local brands fit into one of the-afore mentioned segments, slipping into a price segment that allowed them to compete against the big national brands.<\/p>\n

These days we have a number of segments: light beers, FMB’s, and many others, even segments within segments. \u00a0It is hard to keep up with whom, or what, is in any particular segment\u2026 just look at crafts. \u00a0Several years ago, the industry consultant, Mike Mazzoni, presented a graph at a convention which analyzed the product life-cycle of Budweiser. \u00a0The graph was a classic bell curve. \u00a0It is safe to say that Mike was showing all that every product has a life-cycle. \u00a0So the question is, do segments have life-cycles, too?<\/p>\n

The industry\u2019s largest segment for decades has been the light beer segment, but light beers have been declining for some time now. \u00a0Yet within this segment the hottest brand with the best numbers is Michelob Ultra. \u00a0The light beer segment has lost millions in barrels yet Ultra is growing at an eye-popping rate. \u00a0MillerCoors just announced that it will be testing an Ultra type product. Goldwing, a low carb, low caloric beer will be in a couple of states soon. \u00a0 Miller Lite positioned as a low carb, low caloric beer not long ago, was it not?<\/p>\n

The light beer segment is not dead, not by a long shot, but there are brands that are going through the product life-cycle like the Budweiser graph mentioned earlier. \u00a0Coors banquet has been growing in the domestic segment for years, while Budweiser, which had been declining, now shows signs of a comeback.\u00a0The point is, perhaps the segment<\/em> is healthy, but there are brands<\/em> that are not healthy.<\/p>\n

The craft segment is no exception as there are many brands growing at unbelievable rates, while others are, or have, gone negative. \u00a0The segment is not the issue; it is brand(s) in the segment.<\/p>\n

I learned the hard way about positioning in business, about catering to the right segments…<\/p>\n

Beer Fodder;\u00a0http:\/\/www.adweek.com\/adfreak\/tecate-will-ambush-tonights-debate-trump-mocking-ad-about-building-beer-wall-173708<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At last week\u2019s NBWA convention in Chicago, much of the talk among distributors and speakers centered around the current performance of the craft segment. \u00a0Both the scan numbers and data show a slowdown in craft volume sales and, the numbers show that the slow down seems to be accelerating during this second half of the […]<\/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-Xd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671"}],"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=3671"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3688,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671\/revisions\/3688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}