Faux-Craft

Been to a gas station or grocery store lately? Noticed the beer aisle? Full of craftish looking beers isn't it. Wild Blue, American Ale, Blue Moon, and the entire line of Michelob's new brews. This is a direct response to craft beers recent surge in popularity. Just for a second, lets consider why craft beer is more popular today. The public in general is interested in higher quality things. Go to any grocery store and I bet you will notice gourmet things every where; cheese counters, olive bars, 5 or 6 types of olive oils, etc. Hell, my local Winn Dixie has truffle oil. Consumers in general are becoming more informed and are demanding better quality products.
The craft beer industry has shown people that beer doesn't have to mean pale and fizzy with no taste and people are becoming interested. Craft beer is one of the fastest growing industries right now, and it's all due to consumer awareness.
Now the boys at BMC are no dummies, they saw the potential of good beer and jumped on it. Blue Moon is the fastest growing brand in beer, period. Michelob is putting out some beers that are actually good. Hell, even Budweiser American Ale is pretty good. Now, we hard-core beer geeks aren't biting, but not everyone is like us. We want to try every beer made, and enjoy beers that push the envelope. Most people, however, don't want to keep up with the latest trends and drink 1,000 different beers. They just want one or two different beers that taste better than what they are used to. These faux-craft beers more that satisfy that, and at a cheaper price. If they see a 6 pack of DFH 60 Minute for $9.99 and a six-er of Michelob Pale Ale for $6.99, which one do you think they are gonna get? Now add the sheer dominance of BMC when it comes to shelf space, the monster that is Anheuser-Busch's marketing strategy and their lobbying on behalf of silly laws that give them an advantage and craft beer will never really do any serious damage to the big three.The only way craft is going to be able to gain any advantage is to market better. They are doing a helluva job of reaching their core base, but their core base is small. To make real money they need to reach the Heineken drinker, the blue moon drinker, the Michelob drinker, etc. They need to convince people that their product is better than that of the big three. The only way to do that is mass marketing. There are two problems with that... First is money; no craft brewer, with the exception of the Boston Beer Company has that kind of resources. My suggestion there would be a co-op of sort. Just like the dairy farmers and beef and pork producers do. I would love to see ads from the Craft Brewers of America all over the boob tube. They could combine resources and really reach out.The second issue is a bit harder to deal with. There seems (to me at least) to be a certain pride in not using marketing, and just letting the product speak for itself. That works fine in something like the wine world, where hardly anybody engages in mass marketing and the consumer base as a whole is very informed. However, when taking on BMC, the kings of marketing, it's a different story. These guys built an empire on ad campaigns. They make an inferior, water downed product and conviced people that it was what they wanted. Sometimes, you just have to fight fire with fire. So, start putting out ads making fun of pale watery beers produced by huge corporate giants. Until craft brewers realize that they have to do more in the ad department, they are going to continue to lose market share to the big boys. I really believe BMC is just getting started on the craftish trends and once they get rolling, unless crafts fight back in a more effective manner, it's going to get ugly.