Mountain Man Brewing Company: Introducing A New Light Beer Essay.

Legacy of Mountain Man Larger

Discuss about the Mountain Man Brewing Company – Final Report.

When it comes to a legacy brew in a matured business than Mountain Man Larger has its different place. The company was successful because of the different taste and flavor, the dark color and the design of originality is the picture of coal miners’ crew that is printed on the brown bottle, while maintaining their authenticity and they focused on the brand image and their core drinkers who are blue collar, middle to low-income man. The perception of quality and brand loyalty is the key feature that is maintained throughout. The amount of alcohol content that is slight higher than the other, the percentage of water content, and the smoothness that the beer carrier with a bitter flavour makes it unique and contributed to the brand equity.

As the time has grown and drinkers’ preferences and age group has changed the company was experiencing a decline in sales of their traditional premier beer. Because of the initiatives that focus to encourage moderation, awareness about responsibility and health there is a large shift in beer drinkers and due to which competition was increased with the drinks that have less impacts on health and are a symbol of responsible drinking such as wine and an increase in the federal excise tax added to the factors that impacted the company sales.

Even the company is facing a decline in its sales still during this time the company is in profitable range and that is the most rewarding opportunity that could be used by company wisely. The changes in sales volume are primarily driven by changes in consumer segment as the key drinkers are now the young drinkers and the first-time demographic drinkers that are increasing yearly which are in a process to establish their loyalty to any particular kind of brand. And another is a trend that is the growth and likability of light beer that has captured large market shares.  This situation is an opportunity for the company as the company can follow the trend and launch a new light beer and branding it in a way to keep in the beer family and attract the larger group of young people towards them as they are not loyal and fond of any beer yet. As they cover a larger share of the market it will eventually help in the growth of the company sales. As the youngsters already know about the authenticity, quality and the unique West Virginia toughness but as consider it strong and for working man, an introduction of a new light member in its beer family will definitely attract the crowd and give it a swing to them.

Decline in sales and facing competition

The company should take advantage by following the trend and introducing a new light beer segment maintaining the quality and authenticity by totally introducing it for the younger generation and keeping it bound with the beer family which has already established its name. It should be collaborated with the independent breweries and should even target on-premises branding for the new product like the restaurants and bars. The company need to invest a bit in the advertisement and marketing as it should introduce the light beer not as another product but as a family product that took care of each member and generation so that a loyalty would be achieved greatly.

Strategy: Mountain Man’s target customers will be the younger generation that always looks for a trendy change and new introductions in the established brand name and also cover a large share of consumers’ market which is steadily increasing every year. Major domestic producers will be the key competitor in this as they compete in better production and advertisement strategies. Mainly three companies are dominating in this segment: Miller Brewing Company, Anheuser Busch, and Adolf Coors Company which in 2015 cover 74% of beer shipment altogether in the Mountain Man’s region. With the introduction of the new beer, these beer sales will be distributed to the independent breweries, restaurants and bars where more young drinkers are there to spread the name of the new product and publicized it.

Status quo strategy should be questioned and targeted and instead of keeping the business as it is new motive and introductions with better plans should be made to achieve a greater maret share after having a full idea and have confrontation with the competitor as it will help to enhance the future of the company tough carry risk and cost.

MMBC should invest in a branding activities to build “brand equity” among the new targeted customers too with keeping close their core customers and instead of just building a small sales force for a particular set it should now expand and focus on building relation with the new customers chain that is increasing year by year and should serve equally by promoting two different product as two different sub brands in market that focus on particular type of customers each so that a larger market area is covered and more shares are captured by company by building loyalty and relationship of best quality of services without sacrificing the growth and traditional value that has made them a brand.

Opportunity in the young generation and changing trends

Tactics: Mountain Man always followed a strategy of traditional advertisement by spreading a word of mouth from its consumers but according to stats the success ratio of grass-roots marketing is of more influence when it comes to beer brand awareness. If they follow a trend and use the lifestyle advertisement to reach the young drinkers, and spend more on broadcasting the introduction of a new ‘light’ beer member to the family in a way that they can take both the generations, the middle man that is already a loyal customer to them and the young drinkers who are yet to discover their loyalty towards a brand. Bringing them together and linking with a reason, to share the same beer family with a tradition and authenticity in different age groups will be fruitful for the sales and branding of the company without spoiling its image. Grass-root marketing will work perfectly as in this as it capitalizes on existing social trend and gives the audience what they want, as these campaigns are smaller, highly focused and targeted.

Where the area is to be distributed and the communication and marketing should be done in a way that it will turn this new introduction into a brand in the eyes the new targeted audience by maintaining the perfection in the taste as its previous product..

It should have collaborated with the new independent breweries so that the confidence in the young drinkers could be achieved and their myth of big-business antisense could be removed. Young generations always focus on what they see and can relate so marketing should be more related to their lifestyle and certain perks and incentives should be given as brand promotion to attract them for the brand and achieve their loyalty towards it. It should be easily available to them and that too with a very competitive price when compared to the market to increase the attractiveness of the product.

As Young drinkers are well aware of the authenticity, quality, and a unique “toughness” of the already established brand of Mountain Man Larger and but think this beer to be very strong and suitable for a working man. As this young generation has already built an anti-factor towards the big businesses values, they tend to show some appreciation for the new segment of the brand and it will gain momentum if it will be associated with independent breweries that will particularly focus on the young drinkers and their taste could be the best action to take an advantage of the opportunity.

Strategy to target young drinkers and competitors

If we think in a strategic manner than light beer is important for the future of MMBC’s as it is newer and fastest growing product category which as a great influence among the young drinkers that are our main focused targeted consumers are they cover a large market space. Light is the only beer that has consistent growth in the market. It will help the company to grow and capture the shares of on-premise locations as they are more appealed to young drinking generation and women too who are the two frequent groups in this location.

If we launch light beer of this brand if will not cost much of expenditure in the plant setup and equipment handling as there is already excess capacity present in the facility. As the company is very used to in making these kinds of investments the launching of a new product will not be very expensive for the company. As they don’t have to launch a new brand of beer nationally or locally but just a member of the well-established beer family has to be introduced. And its sales in two years will generate a profit that covers all the investment cost and the overall negative impact on the sales of Mountain Man Larger.

Here the potential drawback could be that though the blue collar customers who are very loyal to the brand and the company of MMBC’s cover a small percentage of drinking customers, when it comes to sales they cover a large sales percentage in the market. When we calculate the loyalty rate for the Mountain Man Larger brand that it comes out to be 53% solely that is much higher than the rate of other competitive products present in the market. (i.e., 42% for Budweiser and 36% for Bud Light.) so if these customers stop feeling the same for their brand than it can cost heavy losses for the company.

If a light beer is introduced it should be very competitive in terms of price, taste, and services as there is already a setup market by the other companies who are following a light beer trend and should focus that the light beer should not draw time, attention and resources from the larger that has the main share of their profit.

It could be possible that the Mountain Man brand will vanish in the sea of new product introduction as competing already established light beer brand is a bit of difficult task as the branding and marketing are done by those companies who introduced new products frequently is bit difficult for a brand who works on a tradition and has particular product that define its creditability.

Conclusion

The above careful analysis reflects that the idea to introduce a new brand of Mountain Man light and then associating it with the independent breweries to target the young generation is the best strategic outcome of the situation if we keep in mind the long-term success of the company. As we are stretching the authentic brand without many implications and focusing on the grass root marketing as an introduction to the new member of the family instead of the old traditional marketing. Introduction of new product will help the future of the company as the drinkers’ preferences are getting changed day by day and a larger share is covered by the young drinkers who want something light, classy, pocket-friendly and that they can relate to their lifestyle with a tag of brand that thinks to cater their need and can link with them.

References

Abelli, H. (2007). Mountain Man Brewing Company: Bringing the Brand to Light. Harvard College.