Andrew England knows fickle consumers can give a tepid welcome to products that are launched to cash in on a fad.
Before he was named Coors Brewing Co.’s marketing director in January, England was vice president of international marketing and strategy for the Hershey Co., where he launched the company’s SmartZone nutrition bar.
Pennsylvania-based Hershey had every reason to be optimistic before SmartZone went to market in 2004. Low-carb diets were in vogue and contributed to growth in the popularity of nutrition bars. But then the low-carb fad fizzled.
“We launched a nutrition bar at a pretty difficult time,” he said. “It was a category that was doing extremely well and, right around the time we entered the category, took a nose dive.”
A boyish Englishman, England, 41, joined Coors in time to witness the company’s announcement this month that it would toss its low-carb Aspen Edge into the trash bin of company history.
Coors, which merged with Canadian brewer Molson last year, introduced the low-carb brew in 2004 to compete with Michelob Ultra, which came to market two years earlier. “The low-carb craze phased out, and Aspen Edge was never a strong player in that category anyway,” said Carlos Laboy, a Bear Stearns analyst.
Companies feel pressure not to miss what could be a moneymaking trend, England said. But sometimes they don’t find out that the trend they are chasing is actually a fad until it is too late.
“The challenge is to determine what is a fad and what is a trend,” he said. “You can say the move toward light beers is a very long-term trend. Sometimes we get it right, and sometimes we get it wrong.”
Coors had it right when the company introduced Coors Light in 1978, England said. It is the No. 1-selling light beer in Canada and the top-selling beer in eight of Coors’ top 10 U.S. markets.
Good marketing strategies rely on a steady stream of ideas, England said. “The challenge for the marketer is to continue to develop good ideas,” he said. “If you have five or 10 ideas, you can say, ‘I think that is a fad, but these other things are a lot more interesting.”‘
England, who grew up outside London and became a U.S. citizen recently, has held leadership positions in marketing and operations, including business director at Nabisco Biscuit Co.; category vice president in the Dr Pepper/7Up unit of Cadbury Schweppes; and vice president of marketing at OpenTable Inc., an online restaurant reservation company.
He comes to Coors at a time when changes in consumer tastes have siphoned the sales of major brewers. Molson Coors reported a loss of $30.2 million earlier this month on revenue of $1.15 billion, up from $1.05 billion a year earlier. A rise in domestic sales in the first three months of 2006 was sharply offset by declines in United Kingdom sales.
Beer sales among major brewers have flattened as more consumers switch to wine and spirits. At the same time, craft brewers are experiencing soaring sales, with a 9 percent increase last year.
Coors also has its own entry in the craft beer market. Blue Moon is Coors’ brew, a contender for the attention of beer aficionados that experienced a sales increase of more than 70 percent last year, said Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association, a beer industry trade association.
“It is unique in that it is an effort by a large brewing company to do a style that is more esoteric,” Gatza said.
Consumers who buy Blue Moon can be forgiven if they don’t realize they are sipping a product made by Molson Coors, the world’s fifth-largest beermaker.
The company makes little effort to advertise its connection to the brew. “You really don’t see Coors’ name attached to it very much,” Gatza said.
Part of England’s challenge at Coors will be to further pump up demand for the brand without dampening its appeal to craft brew fans.
“It is one of those brands that people find and discover it is a great-tasting beer,” he said. “What we are trying to do is to keep it as a discovery beer. The challenge of Blue Moon is to make sure we maintain the mystique and to make sure that we treat Blue Moon like the authentic craft beer that it is.”
Staff writer Tom McGhee can be reached at 303-820-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com.
