Stray Thoughts columnist Breandán O Broin on why Ireland’s major brewers might be a wee bit worried about the growing popularity of craft beers
Big brewing is in ferment. Big brewers are worried that ‘big’ is now considered to be bad. Fair or unfair, that’s just the way it is. No one seems to like big data, everyone dislikes big tobacco and – thanks largely to VW – big auto has shown itself to be untrustworthy. A large percentage of our electorate despises big politics, worryingly perhaps in a democracy.
But what most disturbs the brewing behemoths is that drinkers are turning away from big brew brands. Aye, there’s the rub. Big brewers, like Diageo, have spent generations and enormous fortunes building, developing, enhancing, marketing and hopefully future-proofing their increasingly global products. What could possibly go wrong with such a strategy?
Money and marketing added to hops and barley would prove to be the magic ingredients in winning market dominance. But now the wheels of brand loyalty have turned. It’s as if global brand positioning may have become more of a marketing hindrance than a help. With regards to being prepared, the beer giants invested in state-of-the-art production methods.
In appealing to younger drinkers, the giants opted for a least-risk, middle-of-the-road approach, settling for brews no one disliked. Beer became a case of the bland leading the bland. Utilising the best insight and creative minds available, beer marketers relied on the latest zeitgeist doing the rounds, along with an occasional nod to age-old authenticity.
Bulmer’s, Budweiser, Guinness, Carlsberg produced iconic ads which spoke mostly of the now, but sometimes opted for nostalgia. You knew it was Christmas when it snowed in St James’s Gate and the Budweiser horses thundered into town past the illuminated Bulmer’s posters. All was well in the brewing world where the glass always seemed full to the brim.
But gradually consumer weariness set in. Everything had become too well marketed, too well sponsored, too politically correct, too unwilling to adapt to changing times. Consumers were gradually seeking the bespoke rather than the generic. Drinkers started discussing the taste of their beers the way wine drinkers talked about the characteristics of wines.
Only problem was, all the beer drinkers had to talk about was the image. The product itself – in particular the multitude of lager beers rolled out – were pretty much same old, same old. You were mostly drinking advertising with added alcohol. The newbie drinker wanted to refresh the parts that advertising couldn’t reach. The craft began to challenge the draught.
The pull of craft beers was slow enough at first. Their initial appeal was to a limited market and in truth the craft part of the equation was not always in evidence. Some brews could be a bit rough around the edges, some were odd on the palette and their considerably higher alcoholic content (ABV) could result in waking up with a major hangover the next day.
They were also higher in price, but heck; life is not all about money. Drink cheap, look cheap, you know how it goes. Gradually craft beers extended their appeal as they graduated outwards from Hipster-Ville into High Street. The recent Irish Craft Beer Festival in the RDS featured over 50 brewers, distillers and cider makers, offering over 300 different brews.
Intuitively you might well think that’s about 200 too many. The Trouble Brewing Company may represent an unintended portent of hard times to come. Ultimately, deep pockets and harsh realities will sort out the hoppy hits from the over-wheaty chaff. In the meantime, design agencies are filling their new business boots with crate loads of branding projects. Anyone fancy a Black Donkey, a White Hag, a Beaky Dargus or a Cheeky Rascal?
No, thought not.
Just rewards: But here is where it begins to get interesting. Big brewers are now presenting themselves as being small. They are downsizing into micro-life faster than grandparents rattling around their great Georgian houses in south county Dublin. Big brewers are beginning to muscle in on Indie territory. Sometimes they buy out craft brewers showing signs of real potential, as with Canada’s Molson Coors acquiring the Cork-based Franciscan Well brewery, while promising to develop the product’s value; other times they get in on the act themselves.
On occasions, the whole business gets messy as claim and counter-claim of authenticity are bandied about. The Sunday Times said executives from Heineken Ireland and C&C were called to account by the Food Safety Authority (FSAI) and the HSE over “low volume, high quality draught products” being rebranded in some pubs in Cork and Kerry as ‘craft beer’.
Such ‘rebranding’ benefits no one; major, indie or drinker. The entire industry needs to get its marketing act together and agree on what constitutes an indie product. The Open Gate Brewery at St James’s Gate is a prime example of what can be achieved. In this new iteration of the Diageo business model, small is good, small is craft, small is where we can charge a premium, small is where our hearts and our true passion lies (‘Lies’ – Freudian slip? Ed.)
Brewing troop: In the current Smithwick’s TV ad, ‘We’re in it, for the love of it’, Diageo brings together homebrewers and the ale’s own brewers and highlights the ups and downs of beer making. Created by London agency Adam&EveDDB, the ad was produced by Sweet Media.
Small is where big begins again. In a capitalist society there is nothing surprising about this approach. What do we expect big brewers to do? Lose their bottle while their volumes drop, their beers become commoditised and their profit margins suffer a bad bout of brewer’s droop? Allow their genuine brewing abilities and brewing history to be mocked by latter-day arrivistes often with no real authenticity but with a sharp eye to the main chance? (Not all indie brewers have a passion for purity; there are opportunistic players out there too).
Ultimately, the drinker will be the decider, which is how it should be. But in a pub-land of choice there will probably be more calls tonight for a Hop House 13 from Diageo than for many of the indie brands combined. It may not seem fair that a big brewer’s brand with a marketing budget vastly in excess of the entire investment in a microbrewery set-up can claim to be truly a craft beer, but in this case size may prove to really matter.
Going for a pint?: Smithwick’s ale has been around since 1710. It’s a uniquely Irish product, a red ale, brewed in bulk but deserving to be part of the crafted community of beers. Smithwick’s has fought the good marketing fight down the years. Over time, it has worn marketing coats of many colours – with the odd flat peaked cap thrown in as well.
Pre-millennial work from McConnells included the ‘Are you going for a pint?’ ad campaign (take a bow, Gerry Kennedy et al). It began the process of aligning contemporary themes with reflections of authenticity. Gritty urban imagery nestled nicely among the rural idyll. Understandably, perhaps, Smithwick’s has at times tried too hard to be trendy.
Recent iterations included the quite baffling metaphor of a squirrel busily brewing its own beer. The latest TV ad takes Smithwick’s in yet another direction; aligning it directly with the oddities and eccentricities of home brewing. In creating an affectionate look at the antics of dedicated brewers, it depicts them as well-meaning but misguided amateur enthusiasts.
Created by Adam&EveDDB in London, the suggestion is Smithwick’s shares an affinity with the home brewing movement; it’s part of the evolving organic process, and not in opposition to it. Interestingly, the strategy ignores the micro-brewers with their faux authentic labels and off-the-radar brand names (as per samples on opposite page).
Home brewing is not where the marketing danger lies; indeed home brewing might be considered to have had its day. It’s often seen as a quintessentially quirky English activity more than an Irish one; one presumes Adam, Eve and the client knows this and reckon it’s not a problem. It’s the ‘We’re in it, for the love of it’ tagline that carries a question mark.
It may well be a boast too far.
