Anyone watching a minute or two of the Super Bowl knows how important brands are in the beer category. Yet some retailers are trying the generic beer brands angle again.
In the 1970’s retailers tried plain white cans emblazoned with the word “BEER”. Thirty years later, they are taking a slightly more sophisticated approach to generic beer brands. Last year, 7-Eleven launched “Game Day” beer. Early this year, Supervalu and Walgreens each launched brands of their own. The Walgreens naming approach doesn’t hold much promise: a beer named Big Flats does not hold much appeal. Flat beer, even cheap flat beer at $2.99 a six pack seems like a tough sell.
How big is the bargain beer market segment? Tapped out college students may be the main target. I remember Blatz, the beer brand that sounds like a burp. Another friend remembers the “Schmidt-heads,” frat boys on an eternal quest for the cheapest six pack. Can beer brands be built on customers such as these? I predict these latest store brand beers to fall flat.
UPDATE: Piggly Wiggly has just announced their own line of cheap beer: Pig Swig. Really? Who thinks this could possibly work? By the way, Pig Swig is already trademarked for veterinary usage as a “one-day piperazine water wormer treatment for the removal of large roundworms and nodular worms from swine”–works on chickens and turkeys, too!