Women just aren’t drinking enough beer.
Or at least that’s the conclusion of brewers in the UK, who, according to the Wall Street Journal, have decided to actively court females with new beers.
But are these efforts misguided? Recently Guinness introduced Guinness Red, a beer that is sweeter and doesn’t have as strong an aroma as Guinness’s traditional stout. According to the article,
At O’Neill’s pub in central London, few women have tried Guinness Red because they don’t know it is different than the traditional version, says manager Frank Donlon. ‘Advertising would help explain that it’s like a watered-down Guinness,’ he says. ‘A TV ad would be good.’
Mmmmm. Watered-down Guinness.
Women apparently also like their beer sweeter than men. Coors’s Blue Moon is targeted to women in the UK (although primarily drunk by men in the U.S.) and served with an orange slice “to accentuate its fruity taste.” Coors encourages bartenders to experiment with how they serve the orange slice, resulting in one pub coating it in brown sugar before hanging it off the side of a beer glass. As a woman and a beer drinker, I say keep your brown sugar far away from my ale.
As a woman and a beer drinker as well, I have to say my two favorite beer types are stouts and porters. They can keep that sweet stuff to themselves.
Ugh, this “We’ll make beer just for women!” concept is what blighted the world with atrocities such as “Light” beer, smirnoff ice, and “Beer energy drinks.”
Brewers, make a good beer first, your market will follow. If you must target women by making a sweet beer, try a complex dark and sweet lager like the czechs do. Their dark lagers are a thing of beauty, but almost exclusively drank by women. people gave us funny looks when my friends and I would drink them, we just gave them funny looks back, it was tasty beer! I think part of that is the myth that czech dark lager expands your bust line.
http://www.prague.net/blog/article/46/things-you-should-know-about-czech-beer
Let’s see if I understand: they aim virtually all of their marketing at men by showing them acting like macho idiots, and then they’re concerned because women don’t buy their product. I’m a baseball fan who likes to listen on the radio, so I hear the same beer commercials over and over. None of them are aimed at me, which I understand: I’m not their target market. What I don’t understand is why many of them are actively sexist and offensive — so offensive that if I were buying beer for a party or an event, I’d refuse to buy it.
So here’s some free marketing advice: if you don’t want to market directly to women, you might want to try advertising that at the very least doesn’t make them hate your product. Take a clue from American Airlines, which changed a commercial that I — and apparently other people — thought was insulting and sexist slightly to remove the offending phrase. If a marketer/adman can’t figure out how to market to one demographic without pissing off another, maybe he should find a different line of work.
I will never understand this “women only drink light beer” stereotype. Does anyone out there know why this idiocy still prevails?