Q: Beer sales are flat. What can Coors do to counteract that?
A: Beer has been around as long as civilization. Not surprisingly, it is a mature business. What a lot of people don’t know is that even today beer constitutes close to 60 percent of alcohol sold. Wine and spirits are going a little faster at this point, but it is not as if beer will meet its demise.
Nonetheless, one way to grow the U.S. business is to get people excited about the brand. This summer, we saw a bit of a turning point with the Silver Bullet train ads. They did a lot of what we are talking about, playing on the notion of Rocky Mountain pure refreshment and the Silver Bullet name.
The low-carb craze that swept across the U.S. in the last few years has, in a lot of respects, run its course.
Q: What are your top priorities for Coors?
A: The first is to grow the business and make our brand exciting and compelling. At the same time, we want to change our organization and get everybody focused on the idea that there are consumers out there whose needs we are trying to meet. Historically, we have a great tradition of producing terrific beer that people all over the country have wanted.
People tell me that when they lived in a state where Coors wasn’t available, they would bring Coors across state lines, sort of “Smokey and the Bandit” stuff. It was an age where, if you had a good product, people would do that. Increasingly today, consumers have the luxury of having great products readily available to them all the time. We need to become a brand-driven company that happens to manufacture and deliver a great product.
Q: How can Coors’ Blue Moon, which is priced higher than typical large-volume beers, compete for the hearts of beer aficionados who have a wide range of microbrews?
A: We let the product sell itself, primarily through word of mouth. The ritual of placing the orange slice in it helps differentiate it as well.
Q: Some people – beer snobs – won’t drink it because it’s a big-brewery product.
A: Well, we don’t advertise it as one.
Q: Coors recently announced it would adopt a system for monitoring consumer advertising complaints that is becoming standard in the beer industry. You followed that with a press release about sponsoring a beauty contest in Maxim, a male-oriented pin-up magazine. How do you reconcile that?
A: In my view, this is a bit of a test case. If consumers do have an issue with this, we will hear about it and have something to react to. (Coors hadn’t had any complaints about the Maxim promotion by press time.)
At the same time, I think the Maxim program appeals very much to the target legal-aged, young adult male we are working with. Maxim’s target audience isn’t someone who might get upset. With print media, you have a focused market, so people who might be bothered are not reading Maxim to begin with.
Q: How did your experience at Nike and Disney prepare you for this job?
A: At Disney and Nike – and here at Coors – we need to think every day about how we manage the product and brand we sell. In that respect, a lot of the skills and thought processes are transferable.
But there is a learning curve in any business. There is an important intuitive element. Is this ad right at this time? Is this campaign going to work? Is this the time to take up pricing in that market?
In each organization, you have a different set of variables at play, and those things do take a little time to learn. You learn to listen to people. I don’t have to be the source of all the good ideas.
Q: How is selling beer different from selling Mickey Mouse?
A: For one thing, there are the regulatory aspects of this business. Selling beer is a privilege, not a right, and we need to be responsible and worthy of that privilege.
Another difference is just how variable our success is as you go around the country. Our market share is much stronger in some parts of the country than others, so we need to choose our investments (on that basis). Both Disney and Nike are strong virtually everywhere in the U.S.
Q: When you go to a party, what do you drink?
A: I would have a Coors Light or a Blue Moon.
Q: You just ran the New York City Marathon. Did you wear Nikes?
A: I did, although I confess I had an Asics shirt because it had a Coors Light logo.
Edited for space and clarity from an interview by staff writer Tom McGhee.
