E-Malt.com News article: Canada: Molson Coors making big push to rejuvenate the Molson name in its homeland

For years, the Molson beer brands sold by Molson Coors Brewing Co. have ceded the spotlight in their Canadian homeland to American cousin Coors Light, which eclipsed Budweiser as Canada's top-selling brew last year, The Wall Street Journal reported April, 13.

Molson Coors is now making a big push to rejuvenate the Molson name through a series of new products and marketing campaigns. The brewer this week unveiled Molson Canadian 67 Sublime, a lemon- and lime-infused version of the low-calorie brew it introduced in Ontario about 18 months ago.

Sublime is the latest of several new products created under the Molson label to respond to shifting consumer tastes in Canada, where drinkers are ordering more specialty beers or wine. The company recently expanded Molson M - a lager positioned as sophisticated and easy to drink - to the entire country and revamped advertising campaigns for trademark brands Molson Canadian and Molson Export.

The brewer has made innovation the cornerstone of its strategy to increase sales in Canada, where industry sales volumes have slipped by about 1% for two years in a row in a sluggish economy. Canada's beer market is valued at $16 billion. Molson Coors controls about 42% of sales volumes when including its licensing agreements and joint ventures with SABMiller PLC, Heineken NV and Mexico's Grupo Modelo SAB. AB InBev NV, which owns Canada's Labatt Brewing Co., also has about a 42% share.

Molson Coors, with headquarters in both Montreal and Denver, said it has introduced more new products in Canada over the past 18 months than it did in roughly the previous 15 years. "Consumers are extremely savvy today, so we have to raise the bar," said Dave Perkins, chief executive of Molson Coors Canada.

Like traditional brewers in the U.S., the company faces the challenge of trying to appeal to a customer base that is increasingly experimenting with niche products and shunning mass-marketed brews.

Mr. Perkins made it a priority to reinvigorate Molson Coors Canada's portfolio when he was tapped to run the unit in 2009. Canada is the largest market for Molson Coors, which also has a big presence in the U.S. through MillerCoors LLC, its joint venture with London-based SABMiller.

When Mr. Perkins became CEO, Coors Light was already growing rapidly in Canada, its rise accelerated by the combination in 2005 of Molson Inc. and Adolph Coors Co. He turned his attention to brands like Molson Canadian, once the nation's top-selling brew. Molson Canadian is now the No. 3 brew, according to the company.

The company unveiled a new marketing campaign and label design for Molson Canadian to coincide with the 2010 Winter Olympics in British Columbia. The "Made from Canada" ads, displaying images of barley fields and hockey being played on frozen lakes, highlighted how the beer's ingredients come from the country's vast landscape.

Executives said previous marketing efforts behind Molson Canadian had meandered over the years, failing to focus enough on the beer itself.

Nationalistic sentiment had been part of the message for years, exemplified by "The Rant," a popular commercial in which a man called "Joe Canadian" addressed an invisible U.S. audience, saying, "I'm not a lumberjack or a fur trader, and I don't live in an igloo. ... My name is Joe and I am Canadian." The ad debuted in 2000; the following year was the last in which Molson Canadian ranked as the country's leading beer.

Mr. Perkins and his marketing team, led by Chief Marketing Officer Peter Nowlan, also embarked on an effort to better understand consumer behavior in Canada. A survey of about 15,000 Canadian drinkers commissioned by the company helped it shift from largely targeting consumers by demographics to creating products around specific drinking occasions or consumer "needs."

To appeal to calorie-conscious drinkers, Molson Canadian 67 was introduced in Ontario in late 2009 and is now sold in all provinces. The 67-calorie brew contains about half the calories of wine and mixed drinks.

Mr. Nowlan said company surveys of consumers show the beverage has helped lure wine and spirits drinkers to the beer. The brew is similar to the ultra light lagers in the U.S. from MillerCoors, MGD 64, and Anheuser, Select 55.

The new products, along with the increase in sales from the Olympics, helped Molson Coors gain almost a percentage point of market share last year as its sales by volume rose 2.1%. The Molson Canadian brand's market share rose slightly to 7.4% last year, but is down from 9.2% in 2005, according to market-research firm Euromonitor International. Coors Light's market share is 11.6%, Euromonitor estimates.

As Molson Coors tries to sustain its momentum, it is likely to face stiffer competition from its Canadian archrival, Labatt.

Labatt's sales by volume fell 3.9% in Canada last year. The company said it is working on its own new products, which this year will include a new label on cans of Stella Artois and new flavors of its Alexander Keith's brand, a craft-style brew. Labatt's last major product launch in Canada was Bud Light Lime, which had a successful debut in 2009.

"One of the things that we probably as a company can be bigger and bolder on is our innovation cycle," said Jorn Socquet, who became Labatt's vice president of marketing for Canada earlier this year.

"We're confident with the pipeline of innovation that we're developing that we'll quickly catch up [with Molson Coors] from that angle."



15 April, 2011