ST. LOUIS — The World Series matchup wasn’t finalized until Sunday. But baseball fans could count on catching one thing during the televised games, which kicked off Wednesday: wall-to-wall advertisements for beer.
The competition among brewers to get advertising time on major sporting events is fierce and likely to become more intense with the announced alliance of the nation’s second- and third- largest beer companies, Molson Coors Brewing Co. and Miller Brewing Co., owned by SABMiller PLC.
The companies’ stated goal is to get a leg up in fighting St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc., the industry Goliath that has a larger market share and advertising budget than both of its rivals combined. With overall beer sales flagging, analysts expect much of the fighting will be done through advertising as the companies compete for each other’s customers.
“What you’re doing is duking it out for market share,” said Juli Niemann, an analyst with Smith Moore & Co. in St. Louis. “At this point, the whole thing is about advertising because drinkers out there don’t really have brand loyalty anymore.”
Milwaukee-based Miller and Molson Coors, with headquarters in Denver and Toronto, are keeping mum about strategic plans for their combined marketing department if they pass antitrust reviews.
Chances are slim that the firm will be on equal footing with the “King of Beers.” Advertising Age magazine estimates Miller and Coors spent a combined $425.7 million on advertising in 2006, compared with Anheuser-Busch’s $510 million.
MillerCoors is expected to shave about $500 million in costs over three years when the separate companies combine operations.
Miller spokesman Pete Marino said at least part of those savings will be plowed back into marketing.
Even beyond extra investment, the merger will give MillerCoors increasing clout with advertising companies, helping them drive down rates for big media buys, Marino said. That clout could also help the company strike better deals for sponsoring sports teams, music events or big events like the World Series, he said.
“You can talk about having more and different alliances in more and powerful ways,” Marino said.
It’s unclear how Anheuser- Busch plans to compete with a larger No. 2 brewer nipping at its heels. The company declined to answer detailed questions for this story.
“Our marketing and advertising strategies don’t change due to any combination or separation of companies,” Dave Peacock, Anheuser- Busch’s marketing vice president, wrote in an e-mail.
