Beer Marketer's Insights - Throwback Thursday

This week in 1987, Stroh distribs and execs were exchanging barbs. Some distribs claimed Stroh was on "a witch hunt" with selective crewing and searching for old beer while also demanding wider distribution in outlets where beer wasn't likely to be bought, wrote INSIGHTS. Some distribs complained there was no dialogue with HQ and weren't happy they had to kick in 3 cents per case for Old Milwaukee ads. "I can't ever recall an instance where I've not returned a call to a wholesaler or not taken it when I've been there," countered prexy Roger Fridholm. As for the crewing, he told INSIGHTS that Stroh was trying to retrain its field staff and evolve the way they operate. Regarding Old Milwaukee contributions, he noted Coors too implemented an advertising charge per case, and many Stroh distribs also sold Coors brands. This week in 2001, AB made its biggest international play in yrs when it bought a 14% stake in Chilean brewer CCU for $224 mil. Deal strengthened its tie with co that had 90% of Chilean beer mkt, 11% in Argentina. (AB already had piece of CCU's Argentinian sub.) South American mkts (total 117 mil bbls) ain't easy to crack, noted INSIGHTS. In 9 of 12 countries, leading player already had at least 80 share, according to HVB Capital Mgmt. Across the Atlantic, Interbrew-Bass fallout continued. Belgian govt officials blasted UK decision to stop Interbrew's Bass buy. Speculation was rampant about who would buy Bass, with usual suspects Heineken, SAB in forefront. Tho Reuters (and Insights Express) reported that Carlsberg was "ready to pounce," Carlsberg exec told Danish papers he had no plans to make bid, doubting Carlsberg could get approval. Interbrew (now ABI) prevailed and closed transaction.This week in 2012, Heineken USA prexy Dolf van den Brink shared thoughts on HUSA's corporate culture makeover. In a difficult environment, HUSA became "reinvigorated internally," said Dolf, who had been there for a little over 2 yrs. "Social cohesion is healthy again," according to Dolf, pointing to 97% of HUSA employees who said they were proud to work there, highest of any of Heineken's global units. HUSA had about 40% of employees in a new position compared to prior yr and hired about 20% of employees from outside. Many sr HUSA execs from giant corporations had joined in last 12 mos, including cmo Lesya Lysyj from Kraft, ops veep Alex Jackson from Coke, communications veep Stacy Tank from GE and innovation veep Monique Acevedo from Diageo. HUSA was "ramping up ambitions" on Dos Equis, its hottest brand. As well as it'd done, Dolf mainly credited mktg for creating "pull." But Most Interesting Man campaign was so good that brand risked being "taken for granted" and more could be done on execution, Dolf believed. Dos Equis was HUSA's "2d largest asset" and Dolf "not sure we've leveraged that to its fullest potential." Earlier this wk, Dolf announced he was departing role as Heineken ceo May 31 after leading the #2 global brewer for past 6 yrs.This week in 2013, Harvard Biz Review published a deep dive look at over 3000 ceo's globally and rated them for long-term performance using series of measurements that it termed "objective," focused particularly on adjusted total shareholder return for a ceo's entire tenure. Several beer leaders were ranked highly. Longtime SABMiller ceo Graham Mackay came in at #16 across all industries, leading his co to market capitalization change of $70 bil and he was the #1 rated ceo in Europe in this study. ABI ceo Brito wasn't on this list, but Ambev ceo Joao Castro Neves was ranked at #70. Coming in at #15 was FEMSA ceo Jose Antonio Fernandez and at #99 was Diageo's Paul Walsh. HBR gave the top ranking global ceo title to Steve Jobs (even tho he passed away in 2011). Amazon's Jeff Bezos was #2.This week in 2015, what was then the biggest beer distribution deal of all time closed. That was Reyes Beverage Group's purchase of 27-mil-case Gold Coast in Florida for about a billion bucks. As part of transaction, RBG sold off ABI-owned brands like Stella and Presidente, nearly a million cases, to local AB distrib Eagle Brands. Eagle, owned by Major Brands in St Louis, went up to ~8 mil cases at the time. RBG kept virtually all other brands in deal.This week in 2016, the first deal of the year was announced and it was a biggie. Golden Eagle of Tucson, AZ agreed to sell its biz to Hensley Dist of Phoenix. This deal created ~30-mil case behemoth that sold vast majority of AB volume in AZ (there were 2 other small indy AB distribs). Golden Eagle was between 8-9 mil cases and Hensley over 20 mil cases. Both Hensley and Golden Eagle subsequently transformed their portfolio beyond just AB to craft, NAs and for Hensley especially, wine and spirits. Golden Eagle was owned by Clements family and it was a 3d generation family owned biz. Hensley was owned by McCain family; founder Jim Hensley's daughter Cindy McCain, wife of US Senator John McCain. Hensley was also buying SPIKE Bev, Golden Eagle's non-alc bev arm. Golden Eagle had 430 employees and Hensley 800 employees.This week in 2017, in a highly unusual development, MC megadistrib Andrews decided to walk away from 1.5-mil-case Red Bull biz, as was first reported by sibling publication Beverage Business Insights. Andrews gave Red Bull North America 30-day notice that it planned to drop energy brand in its mkts, including Dallas/Fort Worth to focus exclusively on beer. RNBA looked to self-distribute in mkt by early Feb. Move was 100% Andrews' decision, said source. Oftentimes, in Red Bull transitions, that wasn't the case. "After careful consideration," wrote Andrews prexy Mike McGuire, "we made the decision to no longer distribute the Red Bull portfolio&hellip;. This was a tough and thorough decision-making process, but the decision allows us to move forward with a 100% focus on our core beer business." Andrews reportedly grew its beer biz over 4% in 2016. Perhaps Red Bull was asking for more (in investment) than Andrews was willing to give and Andrews clearly still saw abundant oppys in beer, noted INSIGHTS.

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