Lagos Business School (LBS) learning had made me to be able analyse a case study concerning a brewing Company where a young son of a man named Oscar Prangel that study an Executive MBA like I am doing in Lagos Business School graduated to inherit his fathers business with an assertion to provide more products line.
Chris needed to help his father secure the company’s future with Operations of the Mountain Man Beer Company (MMBC), a family-owned business as Mountain Man brewed one beer, Mountain Man Lager, also known as “West Virginia’s beer.”
Over the previous six years, light beer sales in the United States had been growing at a compound annual rate of 4%, while traditional premium beer sales had declined annually by the same percentage.
Chris met with a regional advertising agency about a marketing campaign to launch Mountain Man Light. Back in his office, he watched an agency
Videotape from a focus group. He observed a half-dozen participants, 21 to 55 years old, showing various reactions to proposals to extend the Mountain Man brand to a new light beer product.
• A man in his fifties leaned into the facilitator and declared, “Mountain Man Light? Come on, I’m not interested in light beer. Just don’t mess with Mountain Man Lager.”
• A man in his early thirties, dressed in jeans and a camouflage shirt, stared at a mock advertisement and shouted, “Fancy barbecue parties, with puppies running around…. What do they have to do with Mountain Man?”
• A man, in his mid-twenties and fashionably-dressed, said, “Sounds pretty corporate… I think the beer is too strong for me anyway. I’ll leave it to these guys to drink.”
A woman in her early twenties wearing low-rise jeans and a trendy T-shirt commented, “Mountain Man is kind of ‘retro cool.’ I like light beer and Miller Lite is so passé. I would definitely try Mountain Man Light.”
Chris firmly believed that the window of opportunity for introducing Mountain Man Light was closing, Oscar had warned, “Look at what new product lines get you… 90% more products, 90% more chance you’ll kill your core brand.” Chris wondered how the men in the photograph would react to a billboard picture of yuppies consuming Mountain Man Light. Could Mountain Man command as much pride for the brand from his generation as it had from his father’s? Moreover, could he reposition the brand to drive sales of Mountain Man Light to young people without eroding the core brand equity of Mountain Man Lager? As Chris prepared to discuss the brand extension with Oscar, he knew that whatever strategy Mountain Man pursued, it would have dramatic implications for the brand, the company, and his
Chris insight about the Mountain Man Lager was known as “West Virginia’s Beer.” The authenticity, quality, and a unique West Virginia “toughness” were core attributes of the old brand while the Younger beer drinkers were well aware of the brand, yet perceived the beer as “strong” and a “working man’s” beer largely consumed by the “swing” and baby boomer generations. Because younger beer drinkers held “anti-big-business” values, they did show some appreciation for the brand’s association with an independent brewery. Traditional advertising was not as effective as grass-roots marketing in building beer brand awareness in certain states . Mountain Man had always relied on grass-roots marketing to spread its beer quality message by word of mouth.
The small percentage of Mountain Man Beer Company (MMBC)’s elites customers accounted for a large percentage of sales, and those customers tended to be very loyal to Mountain Man Lager. In fact, the sole brand loyalty rate for Mountain Man Lager was 53%, which was higher than the rates of competitive product at same level namely “42% for Budweiser and 36% for Bud Light”. The non-loyal Mountain Man Lager customers occasionally spread their consumption across up to five other beer brands.
My recommendation will be for Chris to deduce by retaining the Old Brand product Mountain Man Lager and ensure by adding the new flavour of Mountain Man light beer will tends to secure the future of the company by gaining more market share in the above review of what Chris should do.
To this end, I will be sharing more insight on all other topics or case study that I learnt or was able to review in my next series with other Modules……..follow me closely
Which way do we go, dear MICODERM?