Beer Battles

This beer news comes to us from a Wall Street Journal article from March 26 2010.

As I stated in past article reviews, the rise of “historically poor” countries economies has led to an increase in beer sales. America, look at places like South America and Africa for this is what we looked like to those countries when we were experiencing the rapid-expansion of the middle class; and to places like the ones i just mentioned, you to China. If you are not carful you to could end-up in the mess the American middle class is now finding itself. As a result of this new middle class in Africa, two beer brewers are now battling for beer supremacy in the ice boxes of middle class Africa. Heineken (the worlds third-largest brewer by volume) recently opened a large-scale brewery near Johannesburg which will brew Heineken and Amstel brands since the company stopped allowing SABMiller(who brews Miller Genuine Draft etc. etc.) to brew it for them back in 2007. As a result, the beer giant is taking to the TV in an effort to capture the market. Unlike conventional beer advertising that we are all with; in Africa the shows are sponsored by the beer makers. For example a show called “Class Act” which is like American Idol, where no-named contestants compete to win an agent, a trip to New York for acting classes and a staring role in a Amstel beer commercial and a soap opera called “Generations” where the Amstel brand is prominently placed allover the show. This is not necessary a new idea when it comes to brand placing here in America, we see it all the time like on CSI with all those swift working Dell computers that can pull up a perps record in a blink of the eye, which must just be a prop because anyone who has a Dell knows that the only thing it does in the blink of an eye is carp out! However I suppose it is not so much the fact that The beer advertisers are placing the beer in TV shows like the ones I just mentioned, but what that TV show is about. Generations is about a successful middle-class black family in Johannesburg, the prominent placement of the beer is telling the shows viewers, this is you, and this is your beer. In a sense telling this newly emerging middle-class how to be when it comes to what to drink. To all the people in the newly emerging affluent classes I beg of you. Don’t accept the well played advertising of the big beer brewers as a guideline as to what you should drink, It is not as if you all just started drinking beer for the first time. I know that you have been drinking it before you had more money to piss away on it, so yes go out and explore new opportunities that are being presented to you, but stick with your taste buds and not this newly found sense of who and what you which has come from you new found affluence. Remember beer should be about what taste good not what looks good.