Craft Beer and Advertising

 

Being part of ACB’s correspondent team and representing them in a great craft beer city like San Diego can be overwhelming…I could spend almost every weekend covering another incredible brewery and never run out options. But as a fan of craft beer industry and also a student of marketing and advertising my interests sometimes converge. So I thought I’d step away from my last brewery visit (hope to get to all of them) and tackle something larger that’s been on my mind…

Something like Craft Beer and Advertising.

Advertising can be a sensitive topic for some in the craft beer community. Many successful craft breweries pride themselves on never having engaged in formal advertising. They often say things like, “my beer speaks for itself,” and many brewers view advertising as crass exercise in hype – unworthy of them or their craft.

Fair enough…

The craft beer industry is driven by passion an artisan spirit and values quality over all else. I get that and it’s one of the reasons why I’m drawn to this biz. Hell, it’s one of the reasons we’re all drawn to it! 

Yet every artist would ideally like to have their art acknowledged…right? To have people embrace it, and gods forbid maybe even pay for it. Artists need to survive – and brewers need to grow an audience for what they do if they want to keep the lights on.

So, what is the place for advertising in craft beer?

, Craft Beer and AdvertisingYou might be thinking, “We all saw those infuriating Budweiser Super Bowl commercials. That’s exactly the kind of bullshit that we are trying to get away from!” Again, I get it…But just as that Super Bowl commercial spoke to Anheuser-Busch’s corporate ethos and their disdain for the craft beer community…Craft beer advertising would no doubt celebrate what we’re doing and I promise you it would be so much cooler!

So I have a call-to-action for the biggest craft breweries in the game: let’s try to craft a campaign on a larger scale. 

And I’d ask the larger and more widely distributed craft breweries to reconsider traditional advertising for getting the word out. To showcase your brand as well as our industry…You know the “a rising tide lifts all boats” thing. Let’s celebrate what we’re doing as well our quirky culture. Authentic and truthful is always a good way to go. And how about funny, we can do funny …right?

If these bigger craft breweries, companies like Boston Beer, Sierra Nevada, and New Belgium put their resources on the table – their brands would of course benefit, but so would we all. Because Big Beer is clearly threatened by craft beer’s rise – and if you think we’ve seen the last of commercials like the one they rolled at the Super Bowl – think again.

Advertising exists because it works, Anheuser- Busch understands this and we need to as well…And yes, Big Beer has a huge economic advantage and can throw crazy money at their campaigns …But there’s still so much more we could do

We’ve the beer, we’ve the people, and the inventiveness to orchestrate campaigns that define us and our products honestly. The scale, of course, would be different. But still I’m done with Big Beer telling the world who we are.

Again, advertising exists because it works – So let’s find a way to make it work for us too.

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PS: I like what New Belgium has done with their advertising and YouTube presence over the years. I have no idea if they’re doing it the “right way,” but it’s funny, authentic, and is promoting some solid beer!

Check it out:

 

 

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