Beer is yet another commodity and category that is being decimated by better quality alternatives. The means of production and distribution are no longer controlled by a very small number of big companies. Consumers find attractive alternatives in micro-brew beers or local beers. They have the means to access them (online) and have the product shipped directly to their homes. So no matter how much advertising the big companies do, if their product is just not that great, they will continue to lose customers to alternatives. The “lime” version of Bud Light was said to cannibalize sales of regular Bud Light. And rightly so, consumers are looking for a better product.
Source: http://adage.com/article?article_id=138141
Fourth of July Holiday: Bargain Brands Gain, but Big Spenders Bud, Miller Lite and Corona Tap Out
Despite a flurry of new and improved ad pushes for the country’s leading brews, the days leading up to Independence Day, usually the biggest-selling period of the year for the category, led to gruesome sales declines vs. the same period last year. Sales for Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light and Budweiser plunged 7% and 14%, respectively, in grocery, convenience and drug stores during the two-week period ending July 5, according to scanner data from Information Resources Inc. Miller Lite suffered a 9% drop. The big importers were hurt badly too: Corona marketer Crown Imports watched sales decline 6% to 8%, while Heineken and Diageo each saw double-digit drops.
Tags: adage, Anheuser, anheuser busch, article article, article id, attractive alternatives, Bargain, Beer, Big, big spenders, Brands, Bud, Bud Light, bud miller, Budweiser, Busch, cannibalize, category, commodity, convenience, Corona, Corona Tap, country, Crown, day, decline, Diageo, distribution, drop, drug, flurry, fourth of july, Gain, grocery, Heineken, holiday, holiday bargain, importers, Inc, Independence, independence day, information, information resources inc, Jeremy Mullman, July, lime, Lite, marketer, matter, means of production, micro brew, Miller, number, online, period, Product, product source, production, quality, quality alternatives, sales declines, scanner, scanner data, Spenders, version, year
Taking the top box office results for each of 52 weekends from the past 10 complete years (1998 – 2008; Source: IMDB.com) we see consistently that occasions like Valentines, Memorial Day, July 4th, and Thanksgiving show increased movie going activity. People have more time during these holidays to go to the movies and Valentines is a date+movie occasion. Also, during the summer, many people go to the movie theatre to escape the heat so there is an overall hump every year during the summer months — from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
People go out during Valentines, Memorial Day, July 4th, and Thanksgiving. And they still spend what they planned to spend — 2 tickets for movie — they didn’t buy 2 more tickets and see a second movie on the same date or holiday weekend. If they had several good movies to choose from (often, they don’t), they would choose to spend the finite dollars on the one movie they really wanted to see. The overall movie spending “pie” did not increase much, if any, year over year.
1998 $4,055,194,733 n/a
1999 $4,253,601,768 5%
2000 $4,496,554,005 6%
2001 $5,003,433,737 11%
2002 $5,489,974,199 10%
2003 $5,581,797,720 2%
2004 $ 5,697,299,530 2%
2005 $ 5,524,566,579 -3%
2006 $ 5,660,826,625 +2%
2007 $ 5,968,027,963 +5%
2008 $ 5,887,193,490 -1%
The chart below shows a red line which is the average of all 10 years. The 10 thin blue lines are the annual lines from1998 – 2008, inclusive and these are plotted as actual dollars. They come out right on top of each other.
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Movie advertising, which runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars a year, has failed to noticeably increase the overall spending year-round or even during specific times. The chart below shows the differentials (difference between an annual line and the 10-yr average line). These all hover closely in the +$50M and -$50M band. The amplitude of the 10-yr average (red line) is larger than $50M in the summer hump — implying that the average change in movie ticket sales due to normal seasonality is larger than the change in amplitude caused by ALL movie advertising combined.
And the summer “hump” is due to actual demand (people going out to movie theatres, some to escape the heat) not due to advertising. The only effect of advertising is to share-shift from one movie to another — the total spending remains consistent and even seasonal variations are consistent — a “zero-sum game.”
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All-Time USA Box office
Source: IMDB.com
| Rank |
Title |
USA Box Office |
| 1. |
Titanic (1997) |
$600,779,824 |
| 2. |
The Dark Knight (2008) |
$533,316,061 |
| 3. |
Star Wars (1977) |
$460,935,665 |
| 4. |
Shrek 2 (2004) |
$436,471,036 |
| 5. |
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) |
$434,949,459 |
| 6. |
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace(1999) |
$431,065,444 |
| 7. |
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006) |
$423,032,628 |
| 8. |
Spider-Man (2002) |
$403,706,375 |
| 9. |
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005) |
$380,262,555 |
| 10. |
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King(2003) |
$377,019,252 |
| 11. |
Spider-Man 2 (2004) |
$373,377,893 |
| 12. |
The Passion of the Christ (2004) |
$370,270,943 |
| 13. |
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) |
$367,614,540 |
| 14. |
Jurassic Park (1993) |
$356,784,000 |
| 15. |
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) |
$340,478,898 |
| 16. |
Finding Nemo (2003) |
$339,714,367 |
| 17. |
Spider-Man 3 (2007) |
$336,530,303 |
| 18. |
Forrest Gump (1994) |
$329,691,196 |
| 19. |
The Lion King (1994) |
$328,423,001 |
| 20. |
Shrek the Third (2007) |
$320,706,665 |
| 21. |
Transformers (2007) |
$318,759,914 |
| 22. |
Iron Man (2008) |
$318,298,180 |
| 23. |
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) |
$317,557,891 |
| 24. |
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull(2008) |
$317,011,114 |
| 25. |
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring(2001) |
$313,837,577 |
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From the Associated Press
- 12:28 AM EST, December 19, 2008
Looking to beef up your mojo this holiday season?
Burger King Corp. may have just the thing. The home of the Whopper has launched a new men’s body spray called “Flame.” The company describes the spray as “the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat.”
The fragrance is on sale at New York City retailer Ricky’s NYC in stores and online for a limited time for $3.99.
Burger King is marketing the product through a Web site featuring a photo of its King character reclining fireside and naked but for an animal fur strategically placed to not offend.
The marketing ploy is the latest in a string of viral ad campaigns by the company.
Source: http://www.courant.com/entertainment/la-on-burgerking19-2008dec19,0,5172867.story
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