Who Can Rescue Mainstream Beer?

“The U.S. beer industry makes more sense once you classify the core four (Budweiser, Bud Light, Coors Light, Miller Lite) as value brands, not mainstream,” according to Jim Watson, Senior Beverage Analyst. “This helps to explain why marketing is unable to help stop core-four volume declines, why Corona and Michelob Ultra (uncontested in the new mainstream) look unstoppable, and why beer has been losing share to wine and spirits for decades.”

There are three reasons why you should look at the core four as value brands: a long history of low pricing, low-brow marketing campaigns, and lifecycle issues (old brands struggling to be relevant to a new generation). These factors all negatively affect consumer perceptions. Beer executives speak to the need to ‘elevate the segment’, yet the leading brewers spend hundreds of millions of dollars to present these value brands as the mainstream of the U.S. beer market.