Bud Light Golden Wheat

[admin]

ABI to spend $30 million in marketing of new Bud Light extension

With a budget that outspends the start-up cost of most craft brewers, Anheuser-Busch will launch Bud Light Golden Wheat this fall.

The marketing budget for Bud Light Golden Wheat will be about $30 million, similar to the marketing budget for Bud Light Lime, said Keith Levy, Anheuser-Busch's vice president of marketing. The ads will be online, outdoors, in print and on TV.

Levy said the brewer hopes to attract not only established Anheuser-Busch product drinkers but also "trendsetters" who want to try something new. Anheuser-Busch wants to tap into the surge in popularity of sweeter beers and wheat beers from craft brewers. MillerCoors' wheat beers include Blue Moon, Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat and Leinenkugel's Honey Weiss.

But "we're not trying to outcraft craft," Levy said. "We're trying to capitalize on an emerging style."

The beer will use unfiltered wheat so it will look cloudier than its Bud Light counterpart and will have orange and coriander as ingredients to give it a more complex, sweeter taste, Levy said.

[GlacierBrewing]

..........I have no words.....

[Laughing Dog]

Shock Top with american yeast HMMMMMMMMM

LDB

[South County]

Appropriate for ABI since it will all be "White Noise" anyhow. "Outspends" is a onerous term since 30 million is 60 times what most small breweries start with. In any event this is a dead horse, it will be decades if at all before 130 million people wake up and realize (if they even care) that quality beer exists!

[Moonlight]

For zillions of current Bud/BL drinkers, this will be their introduction to wheat beers (and non-filtered beers). I trust ABI to know their market well enough to make the jump seem attractive.
I would not expect the beer to work for all BL drinkers who try it, but those that warm to it will have seriously left the safe harbor of "filtered yellow fizzy beer." Consider the $30 mil to be more as advertising for what we do, and less for what ABI does.
Thank you, ABI.
I do find it curious that I see more consumers trend to wheat beers in summer...this release is in October.

[lhall]

except for the issue of shelf space and distributor share-of-mind...