Mountain Man Brewing Company: Bringing the Brand to Light

Mountain Man Brewing Company: Bringing the Brand to Light

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

Due to changes in beer preferences, MMBC was suffering the first-time drop in sales. In effort to reverse the situation, Chris was considering the plan to launch a new light beer, Mountain Man Light. The problem, however, he was facing is that he was not sure whether it was a best plan to save the company or it would make the situation worse. If it was, he needed to decide how to persuade his father as well as his management team to get their support and how he would play this severe competition game with the company's current resource and organization to position the new product and earn profit without effect on the core brand. Otherwise, was there any other option to secure the company's future?

SITUATION ANALYSIS

Customers

Introducing Mountain Man Light, the target customers MMBC was aiming at were younger drinkers and women, who were not the company's core customers. Hence, it was less likely that the new beer could cannibalize the old one by sharing customers. Furthermore, these consumer segments might open the window of opportunity for the company developing on-premise markets: bars and restaurants. This probably leads to a market expansion for Mountain Man Lagers and ultimately boosts the sales for it. However, it was difficult for the company to build loyalty amongst younger drinkers who were first-time drinkers.

The company's advantage was the brand recognition amongst younger drinkers who were accounting for more than 27% of total beer consumption. Together with their "anti-big-business" values, it may be well that they would accept Mountain Man Light and try it.

Competitors

Entering the light beer market, competition was the biggest issue facing MMBC. All major domestic producers such as Anheuser-Busch, Miller and Coors were taking part in this market segment and dominating the market with 86% of market shares. With the deep pockets, they threw millions of dollars into marketing as well as enjoyed economies of scale. As a result, they had cost competitive advantage. This market segment was also not niche market for MMBC to target when all competitors were aiming at younger drinkers. The result was that there was only one option left for the company to play this game: differentiation competitive advantage. In addition, the fast-growing trend of this product category would possibly attract more brewers to enter the market.

Capabilities

The strengths of MMBC in introducing the new products were that:

- It was holding a recognized brand "West Virginia's Beer" and higher loyalty rate than other