Sorry Bud . . . Wine is King.

Friday night dinner inner monologue: Hmm, MillerLite or House Pinot Grigio?  The MillerLite might make me feel full, but it would be delicious when paired with the forthcoming enchiladas.  The Pinot Grigio would be lighter, but I think I’d prefer savory over sweet.  Not to mention I like my Pinot Grigio’s very dry, and I’m guessing that the paper tablecloth is a fair indicator that my preferences won’t be met.  Nevertheless, I don’t want to be full. Sigh, quasi-dry Pinto Grigio it is.  The beer and wine categories couldn’t be farther apart, but it appears that in consumer’s minds they are substitutable products.  Hence the plight of the beer industry.  U.S. beer industry volumes have slipped for a third straight year as consumers shift to wine and liquor.

Bud why?  For me, the choice to drink wine over beer hinges primarily on weight management.  But is that what is driving most consumers away from the beer category?   Given that the beer category caters to a 70% male constituent, I think there is more to the story than weight management.  True, the beer industry’s heavy investment into health oriented advertising has given credence to the notion that consumers have become increasingly health conscious when it comes to consuming alcohol.  Or perhaps Americans have become increasingly obese and therefore more aware of their obesity, but I digress.  Perhaps the low carb trend really helped facilitate the move away from beer.  Beer marketers certainly capitalized on this notion in advertising lower carb brews, despite the irony that beers are not particularly carb heavy in the first place.  But regardless, it is clear that Americans made a big push toward lower calorie, lower carb drinks in the early 2000’s. http://www.beveragedynamics.com.  In fact, light brews account for approximately half of all category sales.  

While health consciousness cannot be discounted, my hypothesis is that the declining beer industry also stems from morphing social drinking patterns.  I think the MillerCoor’s CEO, Tom Long, hit the nail on the head with a recent comment in the Wall Street Journal.  “The [millennials] drink different products for different occasions. It used to be in our father's generation, a scotch drinker was a scotch drinker and a beer drinker was a beer drinker.”  http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20111218-704581.html.  Long indicates that the older generation of core beer drinkers has been replaced by the millennials who still enjoy beer but also delve into the wine and spirits categories.   In my paper, I want to flesh out what is driving consumers into drinking more non-beer beverages in order to satiate my own curiosity and better prepare me for my internship with MillerCoors this summer.  Needless to say, Tom and I will have some great elevator discussions about these insights this summer.

On a number of levels, the beer industry is fascinating to me.  My mother is off the boat Irish, and I spent a good portion of my childhood in Ireland.  Every single afternoon, no matter how busy my grandfather was with his law practice, he made time in his day to go to the local pub for [insert stereotype here] at least a pint of Guinness . . . no, he was not rosy cheeked and did not get into bar brawls . . . ok, he was a little rosy cheeked.  The pub culture is very pervasive in Ireland, and particularly in my grandfather’s small town of Tralee.  It was about the experience, end of the work day bonding.  As a young lass, I was fascinated by the pub culture.  And frankly, I’ve always loved the taste of beer.  My father was grilling out in our backyard one day when I was 7, and before he knew it, his Silver Bullet was gone.  He feign scorned me, but I could see the twinkle in his eye.

Gathering insights in the alcohol industry is particularly segment specific.  I think that we can all recognize that our parent’s drinking habits are much different than our own.  For my dad, going shopping for alcohol can only lead to two outcomes: Silver Bullets or Miller High Life.  In contrast, one day my cart might have MillerLite.  The next, Conundrum Table Wine.  The next, Tito’s.  These decisions would be dependent on what sort of dinner party I might be hosting or simply on what mood captured my fancy at the point of sale. My theory, which perhaps is consistent with Tom Long’s insight, is that the older generation’s alcoholic beverage choices were more simple than the millenial’s choices. 

Thus, in order to design a valuable customer alcoholic beverage experience, market researchers must understand the generational shift in alcohol purchasing decisions and the vast dichotomy in market segments, both from an age perspective and a multi-cultural perspective.  In the latter regard, one only need to go shopping in a different region to understand how region specific consumer alcohol preferences really are.  Having moved from South Carolina to Texas, I have seen this concept come to light as I have witnessed how different the grocery store beer aisle is.  On a sidebar, I’m intrigued that more places don’t sell Corona Light, as they do in the Carolina’s.

In order for beer marketers to design a valuable customer experience, they must be in touch with regional preferences, as well as with multi-cultural purchasing behavior distinctions.  They must really dive into the field.  In this regard, one of the key issues my paper will address is if and how regional/multicultural alcohol purchasing behavior has impacted the move away from the beer category.  In addition to the sources cited herein, I intend to inform my research with a variety of reputable beer blogs, including Beer Fathers, and CEO blogs (See, e.g., http://www.scionadvisors.com/blog/article/14/february-food-and-beverage-sector-insights-.php) to more scholarly publications, including Mintel data, The Beverage Industry magazine and Beverage World Magazine.  While my topic is something that merits a very complex analysis of generational purchasing behavior shifts and multicultural behaviors, I hope to at least get a pulse for the beer industries outlook going forward so that ultimately, I can be in a position to enhance the consumer beer experience. 

The Many Faces of the Social Media Beast

Social media has evolved into a curious beast lately. To explore my own evolution of social media

will perhaps reveal some interesting insights on the beast’s transformation. In graduate school part
I for me, law school, I was a very social creature. Having come straight from college, I felt
that I must keep up with social festivities and attend every event possible. I, however, began to notice that I wasn’t hearing about some outings until the last minute. I soon realized that these events were being posted on Facebook.How ridiculous, I thought. Why would a bunch of adults invite people to events on a site called Facebook. Whatever happened to a good old fashioned Evite?!? Still, I refused to join such a silly site. But I began to wonder more and more who was on it. Was I missing out? Were they finding out information about other people that I should know? Where was everyone being invited to in Facebook land?

So one night during Wineclub, my friend Anna put an end to the wonderment. “Give me your email, she said. I’m signing you up.” And that was that. Little did I know that that night I’d made the decision to forfeit thousands of productive hours of my life. Ten minutes later, after getting bored of
stalking ex-boyfriends through my friend’s account. . . ok, 45 minutes later . . . I began on the mysterious quest to “friend” people for my own account. Hmmm, what did friending mean. I started out with the obvious suspects. College roommates, old teammates, etc.  Then I hit a wall. I looked to Anna for direction on “friending rules.”  Could I friend my classmate who I’d only spoken with a few times?  What was Facebook protocol? It made me squeamish to friend people I didn’t know well at first, but I quickly got over that. And, immediately, became giddy when the friend requests came pouring into me opening the flood gates to new "friendships".

And thus began my foray into what I like to call “light internet stalking,” an irrational behavior strongly facilitated and even encouraged by the social media evolution.  It is for this purpose that many folks use social media. The social media beast has evolved in a way that people no longer think it is strange that you, for example, review 100’s of pictures of a person you’ve only met once. I am
always amazed when the guy from high school I barely even knew and haven’t talked to in 10 years comments on my wall post or when I’m tagged in a photo from high school. It is a little creepy.
So we can obviously find a lot of information about people and events than we could before. But is it
transparency we are all looking for, or is it ego stroking. I cannot help in looking at certain people’s
wall posts and cringe at the “look at me, look at me” posts. The nerve for these people to think I care
about where they ate for lunch or just how terrible there day has been because
they spilled coffee on themselves.

And don’t get me started on the dreaded b word posts. That’s right, those people whose profile pictures suddenly turn into babies. And then soon everything is a drool or poop post. Or how about the girl that tags any photo she is pictured in with a handsome boy within ten minutes. Sigh. The insecurity is patent and disturbing. But I’m guilty as charged too. When I’m at the Masters or Kentucky Derby, you’re dang right I’m throwing that up on Facebook. I want to share that with the people I like .. . or do I just want attention and ego stroking.

Another curious thing about social media is comfort levels. I typically monitor photos every few days or so to make sure no one posts one of me taking a keg stand (obviously, I use that as an example, and would never actually partake in such shenanagins). If, hypothetically speaking, someone ever posted one of me looking down at that silver tap, I’d remove it immediately. After all, that isn’t something I’d want my 800 closest family and friends to see. But then I have this one friend who thinks everything is fair game for Facebook. I cringe when I see the documentation and tagging of her sloppily frolicking around the bar. Her, not me, of course. The nugget we can take from this exploration is that everyone has different comfort levels and ways of censoring posting. Some censor a lot, while others let it all hang out. So researchers must be aware that what they are seeing is a censored, and dare I say, maybe even photo-shopped (don’t hate, there isn’t a picture I can't make look good with a few lighting tweaks), glimpse at people.

So knowing we all use social media for censoring, curiosity, attention-seeking, ego stroking, and light stalking, how useful of an information gathering tool is it. Is it useful at all? Or is it simply phony? Or is it a powerful insight into human hubris? In some cases, it is all of these things. Researchers must be mindful that we are all trying to put our best face forward, though the posts we make may not manifest our face at all. We may all be trying to put someone else’s face forward. Or we may be borrowing someone else’s face.  Researchers must be cognizant of the psychological impetus behind posting before the information can be valuable to them. The bottom line is that researchers need to be involved in social media themselves before they can really understand the social media beast and its many heads.

Persona Exploration: Salvador “Snakes in his Head” Contiga

Meet Salvador Contiga, an affluent but value driven consumer.  Salvador is drawn to innovative, well-planned products and services that keep pace with his dynamic lifestyle. He does not perceive high-end products as a status symbol, but rather as an embodiment of his multi-dimensional, passionate lifestyle. Salvador’s core values are mentoring, exploring his curiosities, helping those without a voice, and shunning convention and stereotypes. He is overall content but sometimes worries about societal epidemic’s including violence, anxieties and low self-esteem. He also is troubled that he cannot commit to a job—he has worked as a voice over artist, consultant, financier, marketer, and sports agent, and is only 39. He aspires to find a meaningful job that will satisfy his intellectual curiosity, as well as to influence others to find their passions in their careers and hobbies.

Everyday, Salvador revels at the million opportunities for work and play in his external environment; he can never seem to settle on any one and just as he switches careers constantly, he also dabbles into many hobbies.  Similiarly, his friends come from all walks of life. He thrives from learning from others and appreciates diverse perspectives. Often, he stops by the side of the road to chat with the homeless man, curious as to how a person can burn so many bridges that not even one friend will take him in. Nevertheless, Salvador always gives humanity the benefit of the doubt. At his core, Salvador is caring and respects all walks of life so cause based marketing campaigns, including those benefiting Darfur and Hurricane Katrina victims, often entice him.

His measures of success are achieving inner peace, positively influencing as many people as possible, and always improving and stretching his horizons. His obstacles are negative influences, insincere people, and convention without insight. Salvador always has an attitude of wonderment, constant intellectually curiousity. He never accepts anything at face value and often humors in life’s ironies. He has an unassuming, low key appearance and is most likely wearing casual Dockers kakis, and a pullover sweater, or a collared shirt on nice occasions. He dresses for comfort and practicality, not to stay on trend or make a statement except that he will purchase for cause based marketing.

Behaviorally, he is exceptionally inquisitive and talks to everyone, asking a lot of questions.  Friends are there to enlighten him and for him to enlighten them.  His bosses tell him to stop  trying to save the world and just finish the task at hand. His influencers tend to be people similarly minded to him in that they are always trying to effect change and innovate. Salvador’s fear is missing out on experiencing life, and he often has intense FOMO. He is frustrated by bureaucracy, insincere politics, and bravados. His obstacles are his own psyche, and he often jokes that the “snakes in his head” stop him from ever making a decision or getting anything done, although he always excels in his achievements.

While the market offers a smorgasbord of purchase options, Salvador will only purchase innovative, well-thought out products. He is a first adapter, but a product needs to hold his interest long enough to merit repeat purchases.  Product performance is vital as Salvador does not purchase for prestige and has no tolerance for poorly crafted products that do not understand his needs. Innovation, creativity and connecting to Salvador’s lifestyle are crucial in maintaining his brand loyalty. While Salvador does not align himself to any one brand, he often purchase Apple products in light of its understanding of how to keep up with his busy lifestyle and constantly keep him engaged. Marketing campaigns that reflect a connection between the product and Salvador’s busy, risk-taking lifestyle will draw him in, rather than prestige based campaigns. In short, the Salvadors of the world want products that will mesh with their active, intellectually curious, spontaneous, value-driven lifestyles.