Marketing Schools – Marketing Beer
The camera pans across a dark, smoky club, where beautiful women surround a bearded man who regales listeners with tales of his manly deeds. Images flash of the man arm wrestling a South American dictator, saving a bear from a trap, capturing an enormous fish to the delight of his female companion – this is the most interesting man in the world.
At least, that’s the message brewing company Dos Equis hopes to hammer home as the gentleman settles down with a cold, refreshing beer that matches his values and point of view. Want to be as interesting and manly as this spokesperson? Drink our beer.
This link between brand and identity is rooted in an understanding of consumer psychology and how customers process advertisements. Professionals in the beer advertising industry have long sought to make these connections – with some experiencing more success than others. Read on to learn some of the psychological underpinnings marketers consider when advertising beer.
Advertising in alcohol is a bit different from advertising in other product categories. For one, much of advertising in alcohol isn’t aimed at increasing the overall number of drinkers – in fact, specific regulations prevent the alcohol industry from designing ads in such a way.
Instead, marketers typically design advertisements with the goal of increasing visibility of their specific brand and capturing the attentions of potential consumers. Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors are two of the biggest spenders in the brewing industry, together spending over $1 billion for advertising in 2010, each seeking to dominate the “light beer” market.
