Comments on: Budweiser = Innovation? You’re Kidding, Right?

By: chris dilla

chris dilla — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:39:40 +0000

Thanks for the link and the well developed and well written piece. ‘Beer’ and craft beer are living on two different planets. I am just extremely glad I live on the one with craft beer and true innovation.

By: Albert Ciuksza Jr.

Albert Ciuksza Jr. — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:48:44 +0000

Maybe that was the "share of throat" they were enthusiastically discussing.

(Bows head in shame for embarrassingly immature joke.)

By: Scott at East End Brewing

Scott at East End Brewing — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 04:13:48 +0000

I just read the second article you linked – you’re right. The term “beverage platform” makes me wretch a little. Apparently their gag reflexes have been overstimulated by something other than actual beer.
Cheers -Scott

By: Albert Ciuksza Jr.

Albert Ciuksza Jr. — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:55:14 +0000

Thanks Scott, I appreciate your perspective. I would be fine with the HBR perspective if they were talking about innovating the business process (like Walmart revolutionized supply chain management), but their conversation revolved around actual product innovation, which is laughable. Bud Light Golden Wheat or Bud Light Lime aren't innovations -- they're marginal changes to existing ideas.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!

By: Scott @ East End Brewing

Scott @ East End Brewing — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:12:19 +0000

I guess maybe their “innovation” is in marketing, and world-wide sales growth? I’m assuming this is a big challenge in the US market where these guys already produce over half of the beer consumed here.
These are the pressures that a publicly traded multinational beasts like AB-InBev has to respond to. They could be selling lugnuts, and their measure would be SOLB…share of lug bolts. Independent breweries don’t suffer from these constraints, and don’t have to worry about shareholder return. Sure, we need to stay in business or any BEER innovations are fleeting at best, but the beer is the driver, and our devoted beer fans are the way we get there… coming along for the ride, no matter how weird it gets. (Apologies to Hunter S. Thompson for butchering that quote.)

So yes. In the eyes of the HBR, they are probably innovating the hell out of the business world. I assume this, because their business world is of little or no interest to me.

Is the beer I’m brewing exciting to me, and to the people who like GOOD BEER? If so, I’ll consider myself a BEER innovator, and leave the market share calculations to those people at AB-InBev who already hold their +50% slice of the pie. That’s just not a kind of pie that interests me.

Cheers – Scott