In this business you either sink or swim or you don’t.

For decades, every major brewer held an annual convention for their wholesalers.  Conventions were held for ABI, SABMiller, and Crown, in addition to many breweries no longer in existence, including Schlitz, Pabst, G. Heileman, and regionals like Lone Star, Pearl, Olympia and Hamm’s. Large and small importers, alike, including Heineken, Paulaner, Molson, and Warsteiner, also held annual conventions.

The two to three day conventions were frequently held in the cities in which the brewery was headquartered, but they were also held in resort cities including New Orleans, Orlando, Phoenix, San Diego and Honolulu.   The programs were usually led by not just senior management, but more frequently by well-known national speakers or motivators.  Most suppliers had an extensive area in which to display new p-o-s items like wearables, and higher impact features like celebrities, brand funded events, race cars, balloons, boats and other interesting promotional materials.  The purpose was to pump up the distributors to motivate them to achieve sales goals.

There was certainly no deficit of things to see and do, but the highlight of every convention, no matter the supplier, was the new media and marketing.  The lights went down in the convention center and the new commercials were shown.  One could easily predict the success of the new ads simply by the response of the wholesalers’ at the convention.  A polite response to a specific commercial usually indicated a disappointing ad.  On the other hand, a standing ovation had the opposite effect.  Either way, the response from the distributors was not a definitive prediction of an ad’s success or failure, but more times than not, the response at the convention was a good prognosticator of the ad’s future.

With almost 112 million people viewing Super Bowl 50 a few weeks ago, just as distributors have done at their respective conventions, consumers will also show their approval or disapproval of the AB ads aired during the big game.  Historically, AB has had top rated ads, however, the commercials AB ran this year did not win the top rankings.  They even did make the top ten favorite commercials!

AB ran no ads this year with either horses, dogs or frogs.  Nothing cute or moving.  But why?  Why not go after another number one ad for the Super Bowl?  The Michelob Ultra ad stuck to its core message which has not changed, and the growth of the brand continues to accelerate. Shock Top used humor to introduce their brand; while Bud Light used celebrities on an old theme and Budweiser really took a leap.

AB continued the Budweiser Brewed the Hard Way theme with new creative ads.  Macho, but, not the in-your-face type of theme. The ad was more about what the beer is not than what it should be.  AB once again used crafts as its target, not to get to the craft drinkers, but to get to the non-craft drinkers.

Perhaps the best AB commercial was the public service ad that had a very powerful message against drunk driving.  Instead of a “pretty please don’t drink and drive” message, it was an in-your-face ad that really seemed powerful.  An ad long needed.

AB’s decision to not chase rankings, but to chase sales, seems to finally have caused them to understand something needed to change.  Going forward, no one knows if this ad will have a positive effect on sales as AB and their distributors hope, but really what does AB have to lose?

In this business you either sink or swim, or you don’t!