Breweries Have 5th-Most Satisfied Customers

November 18, 2009 By Jay Brooks

acsi
According to a new survey, released yesterday by the American Consumer Satisfaction Index (and tweeted my way by Anat Baron — thanks!), Breweries ranked 5th in overall satisfaction by consumers among industries polled by the group. Here are the first five with their score in parentheses (out of 100):

Personal Care & Cleaning Products (85)
Soft Drinks (85)
Full Service Restaurants (84)
Automobiles & Light Vehicles (84)
Breweries (84)

For breweries, this is the highest marks they’ve received since this poll began, and represents a 1.2% increase over last year.

As reported by Brand Week, comfort foods like candy and beer continued to do well.

Beer manufacturers reached their highest level to date with a score of 84 (out of a 100-point scale) to mark a 1.2 percent change from 2008 rankings. Top companies included Anheuser-Busch InBev (85) and SABMiller (83), which grew 3.7 percent and 1.2 percent respectively from last year. Molson Coors Brewing (81) dipped by 2.4 percent, while “all others” maintained their rank at 83.

The ACSI had their own take on beer in their analysis:

Beer: A Comfort Drink?
Beer drinker satisfaction has soared to an all-time high in ACSI. It too seems to follow the pattern of chocolate and sweets, but perhaps a bit less pronounced. The industry improved 1.2% to an ACSI score of 84, led by a 4% climb for Anheuser-Busch to a score of 85. Just a year after it was acquired by the Belgian-Brazilian conglomerate InBev, Anheuser-Busch matched its biggest ever single-year gain to reach its highest level ever. InBev has made a number of changes in business strategy—it sold the ten theme parks owned by Anheuser-Busch to reduce debt and focus on core business, cut over 1,000 employees, and overhauled management. The company has seen increased sales of lower-priced brands such as Natural Light and Busch and of newer products such as Bud Light Lime and Golden Wheat varieties.
Results for Miller and Coors brands, which market under a joint operating agreement, were mixed. Miller improved slightly, up 1% to 83, while Coors dropped 2% to 81, falling to the bottom of the industry. The Coors brand portfolio is composed of a greater proportion of high-end entities and more high-priced brands compared with Anheuser-Busch. In the midst of an economic downturn, customers typically look more to value for money. Coors drinkers report a sharp decline in value for money.

The ACSI also noted a pattern during economic downturns:

“The same thing happened in 2001 in the midst of the previous recession and also in 2004 when concern over the Iraq war and rising fuel prices appeared to be reflected in higher satisfaction with comfort foods,” said Professor Claes Fornell, founder of the ACSI and author of The Satisfied Customer, in a statement.

Newspapers and Cable/Satellite TV tied for last, though Airlines were a close second-to-last.

Not Drinking Leads To Depression

October 6, 2009 By Jay Brooks

pink-elephant
It will be interesting to see how the neo-prohibitionists spin this one. An article in Time magazine, entitled Why Nondrinkers May Be More Depressed, by John Cloud, details the findings of a recent study that suggests “those who never drink are at significantly higher risk for not only depression but also anxiety disorders, compared with those who consume alcohol regularly.”

That study, Anxiety and Depression Among Abstainers and Low-Level Alcohol Consumers, was published in the journal Addiction. According to the press release from the journal:

Abstaining from alcohol consumption is associated with an increased risk of depression according to a new study published in Addiction journal.
It has long been recognised that excessive alcohol consumption can lead to poor physical and mental health. However, there has been mounting evidence that low levels of alcohol consumption may also be associated with poor mental health possibly due to abstainers having other health problems or being reformed heavy drinkers.
The study utilized data from the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT Study) based in Norway. This provided information on the drinking habits and mental health of over 38,000 individuals. Using this data the authors were able to show that those individuals who reported drinking no alcohol over a two week period were more likely than moderate drinkers to report symptoms of depression. Those individuals who additionally labeled themselves as “abstainers” were at the highest risk of depression. Other factors, such as age, physical health problems and number of close friends could explain some, but not all of this increased risk. The authors also had access to reported levels of alcohol consumption 11 years prior to the main survey. This showed that fourteen percent of current abstainers had previously been heavy drinkers, but this did not explain all of the increased risk of depression amongst abstainers.
The authors conclude that in societies where some use of alcohol is the norm, abstinence may be associated with being socially marginalized or particular personality traits that may also be associated with mental illness.

Though the authors of the study stop short of encouraging abstainers to start drinking, the Time magazine concludes with what any rational person reading this might think, which is “just say yes.”

The most powerful explanation seems to be that abstainers have fewer close friends than drinkers, even though they tend to participate more often in organized social activities. Abstainers seem to have a harder time making strong friendship bonds, perhaps because they don’t have alcohol to lubricate their social interactions. After all, it’s easier to reveal your worst fears and greatest hopes to a potential friend after a Negroni or two.
So does this mean we should all have a cocktail? Maybe, but Skogen says he doesn’t believe his study should encourage abstainers to become drinkers. Rather, he says doctors might want to investigate why abstaining patients don’t drink and explain that in societies where alcohol use is common, not drinking may lead them to feel left out. Sometimes, you should just say yes.

In addition to this study concerning mental health, several studies over the past decade or more have also concluded that the moderate consumption of alcohol leads to better physical health than for people who abstain from it. Better physical health and now better mental health, all from simply having a drink or two regularly. To me, that’s the pink elephant in the room.

pink-elephant

The anti-alcohol groups seem so hell bent on their all or nothing approach, seeing any alcohol as bad and no alcohol as all good, when the reality is hardly that simple. As these studies suggest, the common ground should be a more reasonable approach that leads to more drinking in moderation, removing the conditions that lead to over-consumption through education, strengthening infrastructure for public transportation so people can go out for a drink without fear, and recognizing that drinking alcohol does have many positive attributes when consumed responsibly. I realize that seems like a Herculean task at this moment in time, but that’s the only way I can see moving past the entrenched positions of both sides.

Obviously, I’m on one side of the aisle and I honestly believe that no one involved with the alcohol industry thinks that over-consumption or any extremes in drinking are a good thing. Both camps seem to agree on that. But the people against alcohol seem incapable of giving up any ground to concede that for most people moderate drinking may not be the evil they believe or that it doesn’t necessarily have to lead to greater problems. That very unwillingness, I believe, is actually exacerbating the problems that some people do experience with drinking too heavily because their focus is on the wrong problem and paints all drinkers will the same broad brush. As science continues to confirm that alcohol has been, and still is, a part of a healthy lifestyle, that position will become harder and harder to defend.

Remember the definition of an abstainer by Ambrose Bierce, in his Devil’s Dictionary:

Abstainer: n. a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.

Top 5 Beer Cities & America’s Best Beers

October 6, 2009 By Jay Brooks

mens-journal
Men’s Journal yesterday released their annual lists of beer, both America’s Best Beers and The Top Five Beer Towns in the U.S.. Let’s look at the top five cities first.

San Diego
New York City
Portland
Philadelphia
Chicago

It’s nice to see San Diego get some much-deserved love. While I think New York has improved in it’s beer scene over the last few years, I still have a hard time seeing it as being superior to Portland or Philly. Of course, Men’s Journal, like many periodicals, is published in New York and it’s been my experience (I lived there for several years once upon a time) that New Yorkers have an over-developed sense of their central position in the world. Naturally, I would have liked to see San Francisco on the list, but really it’s the Bay Area in total that’s most deserving, not that just the city’s scene isn’t good, too.
top-5-beer-cities
As for the beers they highlight this year, it’s a pretty good list, I’m happy to say. I especially love their introduction, where they reveal what many of us in the beer world have been saying for a few years now: “American craft brews now dominate” around the world. Finishing with “[n]ow there’s no reason to travel farther than your nearest specialty grocery store for a perfect beer.” If only the grocery chains would catch up and stock a wider range of good beer.

The list is divided into five broad categories; ales, lagers, dark beers, Belgian-style and cutting edge. Authors Christian DeBenedetti and Seth Fletcher then chose three beers of each kind to come up their top 25. As subjective at these lists can be, I have to say Men’s Journal is getting better at picking their top beers. While there are plenty of other beers I might have put on such a list — as any two people would undoubtedly choose different beers — I can’t really quibble with any of the beers they picked, save one or two, but not even enough to mention. I’ll have to do my own list one of these days.

If Beer Is The Kettle, CASA Is The Pot

October 2, 2009 By Jay Brooks

casa
The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, is nothing so grandly academic as its name suggests, but one of a growing number of anti-alcohol groups infecting America with its agenda. Today, its Chairman and Founder Joseph A. Califano, Jr., accused the Brewers Association and the Beer Institute of Chutzpah (which he misspelled “chutzpa”) and two specific members of the House of Representatives of hypocrisy. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

On his Chairman’s Corner blog today, he rails against the BEER Act, which Congress introduced back in mid-February. H.R. 836, or as its more commonly known, the Brewers Excise and Economic Relief Act of 2009, seeks to roll back the federal excise tax on beer that was doubled in 1991. The bill also would provide additional tax relief for small brewers. Most people, especially those who oppose alcohol, make the assumption that excise taxes are proper to punish the sin of drinking.

He gives his “First Annual Chutzpa (sic) Award” to the Brewers Association and the Beer Institute for H.R. 836, claiming they’re arrogant and he even has the balls to suggest them of bribery! First of all, he’s seriously delusional if he thinks small brewers have piles of cash for lobbyists.

The fact that a trade organization might work for favorable treatment by Congress for its industry or for a reform of the laws that regulate them, appears to be a novel concept to Califano. Isn’t that what every trade organization does? Did I miss a meeting? It’s okay for every other lobby, but not beer? And we’re arrogant for being happy when something goes our way?

He’s upset because for some reason he believes that the alcohol industry is responsible for the minority of people who abuse it. And, as usual, he throws around the nonsensical statistics of how much societal costs alcohol is apparently on the hook for, even though that’s not true of virtually any other industry.

As I’ve noted in Sin Tax Tyrannies, U.S. Senate Told To Raise Beer Taxes, Stupid Is As Stupid Does, The Lie That Won’t Go Away, and who knows how many others at this point, the notion of taxing only alcohol and tobacco should be deeply disturbing to any rational human being. Those two products are the only ones in our country that have excise taxes imposed on them, taxes no other companies have to pay.

People like Califano and his ilk see no apparent contradiction in tobacco and alcohol having to pay for their presumed sins but every other product that’s bad for us in quantity doesn’t have to. Soda companies don’t pay for the medical costs of the obesity epidemic. Meat companies don’t pay for higher heart risks from the over consumption of beef. Too much of almost anything can be bad for you, but we don’t say there shouldn’t be prescription drugs on the off chance that some people might abuse them.

Califano goes on to give his so-called “First Annual Hypocrisy Award” to the sponsors of H.R. 836, calling them hypocrites because for reasons passing understanding he seems to believe that being pro-alcohol and also for health care reform is contradictory. It appears to come back to the idea that alcohol has to pay for any health consequences that someone who drinks might encounter, yet no other industry has to do likewise. The Patriot Act specifically gave an exemption to pharmaceutical companies for any harm caused by them, but beer better pay its bill, by gum.

To me, that’s a far more hypocritical position to take, especially when his arguments are laced with the usual faulty statistics and, naturally, the “it’s for the children” gambit that has become de rigueur for anti-alcohol groups to invoke. Cutting the beer tax, Califano insists will mean more underage drinking, despite the fact that underage drinking is still illegal. The fact that people under 21 still manage to buy alcohol is somehow the beer industry’s fault; not law enforcement, not retail, not the ridiculousness of the law itself. But raising the tax (and thus the price) so it’s too expensive for kids punishes every adult who can legally buy alcohol, too. That’s not a problem if you want another prohibition, of course, but for the rest of society that seems patently unfair and even cruel.

Most intelligent legislators I should think are more concerned about getting our economy on firmer footing — something that H.R. 836 easily accomplishes — than following the misguided advice of the lunatic fringe that CASA represents. If I had my own made-up award for hypocrisy, Califano, CASA, and the rest of the Neo-Prohibitionist groups, would certainly be worthy recipients.

Beer Raped Your Daughter and Gave Her Gonorrhea … Again

October 1, 2009 By Jay Brooks

Thanks to Anat Baron for tweeting this my way, but it seems that the storm clouds are once again gathering over ridiculous propaganda aimed at beer. Luckily, Reason Magazine — a periodical I’ve written for — is on the case in a piece entitled Beer Raped Your Daughter and Gave Her Gonorrhea. Again.

It concerns a Washington Post editorial where two doctors argue out of — one hopes — a sense of fealty to their Hippocratic oath that more expensive beer means lower consumption, less problems, less issues, less greenhouse gas emissions, less poverty, less .. well, you get the idea — the world will be a magically better place if only there were more taxes on beer. Of course, we’ve been down this argumentative road before and their statistics, like others before them, don’t add up. They never do, but that doesn’t stop them for spouting off and making this shit up, because they seem to be taking the approach of a lie repeated often enough becomes a fact over time. As a member of The Angry Arm of the Alcohol Lobby, I say bullshit.

Here’s their nut job argument in a nutshell:

One way to reduce the harmful effects of heavy drinking is to make drinking more expensive: the more a drink costs, the less people drink. This is true of young people, pregnant women and even heavy drinkers. Research indicates that a 10 percent increase in current alcohol excise taxes — that is a penny for a beer — would result in less drinking, especially among underage drinkers, reducing rape, robbery, domestic violence and liver disease. A tax increase of 3 cents per beer would cut youth gonorrhea by 9 percent.

So more expensive beer means less rape, less STDs, less domestic violence and all manner of other horrors. Because that’s the way it’s worked as cigarette prices have kept going up, right? Here’s how Reason looked at this argument:

I’m going to pull out that last line one more time in case you, like me, sometime skim over blockquotes too quickly:
A tax increase of 3 cents per beer would cut youth gonorrhea by 9 percent.
Look at the lovely young lady at right [an old Budweiser print ad of a couple fishing]. If only a three cent tax on that Budweiser could have saved her from the heartbreak of VD.
Messrs. (Drs.?) Sederer and Goplerud have taken the fine art of vaguely claiming that “studies show…” to a new level. Obviously, the argument here is that lots of beer makes people more likely to rape, pillage, etc. and that pricier beer means less consumption. A quick Google reveals that they’re pulling from 2000 study that looked at beer taxes and gonorrhea rates in various states. Reason, of course, tore this study a new one back when first made the rounds. Key passage:
[David Murray of the Statistical Assessment Service, a non-profit think tank in D.C.] does yeoman’s work pointing out the junk reasoning at the root of so much junk science. This one was a high, hanging curve for Murray, who said the CDC’s thinking was on the level of “the sun goes down because we turn on the street lights.”
The really interesting thing is that the CDC, in effect, agrees with that criticism. It buries its assent, however, in an editorial note that says the findings “do not prove a causal relation between higher taxes and declining STD [sexually transmitted disease] rates.”

To get a sense of how bad their math is, just look at their assertion that a 10% increase means only one penny more in excise taxes. That would mean that the taxes now would be 10 cents for that to be true. Are they? Not even close. There’s a federal excise tax on beer, and then a state one, too, and the amount varies widely from state to state, making that line ridiculous on its face.

And they trot out this old saw:

It has been 18 years since federal taxes on alcohol have changed. If all spirit taxes had increased at the consumer price index and been taxed like liquor, federal taxes on a shot of spirits would have increased by 10 cents, a beer by 21 cents, and a glass of wine by 24 cents. Making that adjustment now would raise $101 billion over 10 years, without state tax increases. Equalizing the tax among beer, wine and spirits, without inflation, would raise $60 billion over 10 years.

Don’t you believe it. I’ve examined this argument thoroughly before in Here We Go Again: Beer & Taxes and Why Alcohol Doesn’t Get A Pass, among others, and it’s nothing but vicious propaganda. And propaganda made even worse by virtue of it coming from medical doctors, who people tend to believe have their best interests at heart. They don’t, of course, doctors have their own interests at heart, like everyone else. Just look at how they attacked the idea of health care reform, beginning all the way back in 1948 when a P.R. firm hired by the AMA actually coined the term “socialized medicine” to scare people into making sure we wouldn’t have universal health care in this country. That’s how much they care about you and me.

If you track these things, like I tend to, you’ll notice that the attacks on alcohol have been getting more frequent, more virulent and more mainstream. You don’t think that could have anything to do with pharmaceutical ads proliferating while alcohol ads are highly regulated and restricted? Nah, must be a coincidence. Now where does your daughter hang out? I want to buy her a beer.

Time and Money and Beer

September 20, 2009 By Jay Brooks

Clock
Forbes had an interesting article Friday entitled Time Vs. Money: Which Rules Buying Decisions?. The article is based on a recent academic paper published in the Journal of Consumer Research by Cassie Mogilner, a professor of marketing at Wharton, and Jennifer Aaker, a professor of marketing at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. That paper, entitled The Time vs. Money Effect: Shifting Product Attitudes and Decisions through Personal Connection [pdf], examines people’s associations with both time and money and how they relate to decisions about what products to buy. It’s a fairly common element in advertising. According to the study, “a content analysis of ads in four magazines targeting a wide range of consumers (Money, New Yorker, Cosmopolitan, and Rolling Stone) revealed that, out of 300 advertisements, nearly half of the ads (48%) integrated the concepts of time and/or money into their messages.”

time-money-model

Irrespective of whether feelings of personal connection stem from experiences gained using the product or from the mere possession of the product, we hypothesize that increasing one’s feelings that the product is “me” will lead to more favorable product attitudes and increased choice. Indeed, decades of research in psychology have given credence to the assumption that individuals are motivated to (and do) view themselves favorably. Consequently, people tend to have positive automatic associations with respect to themselves—which can influence their feelings about almost anything that is associated with them. For example, people like the letters that appear in their own names more than those that do not, and they are nicer to strangers who share their birthday than they are to other strangers.

One example the authors use is about beer (which is how I came to notice it). From the Forbes article:

“One thing that was surprising,” [Mogilner] says, “was to see how consumers’ attitudes and behaviors toward products and brands can be shifted by something as subtle and as pervasive as mere mentions of time or money. “The concept of time, for example, evokes a personal connection with a product in terms of the experience the consumer gains while using it, she says. To illustrate her point, [she] cites a well-known phrase in beer marketing—”It’s Miller Time.” The ads are still remembered by many consumers from the 1980s because consumers associated the beer with the routine, end-of-day transition from work to leisure.
As for the different emotions that money and social status-related campaigns can conjure, Mogilner points to advertisements for Stella Artois, a premium beer from Belgium. One of the product’s ads shows a man struggling to earn money—whether by chasing pigs, hauling sticks or herding goats—so he can buy his grandmother a pair of beautiful, expensive red shoes. But, alas, just as he’s about to present her with the gift, he spies a pint of Stella and makes a shoes-for-beer trade with the waitress. The commercial is funny, but it also captures the company’s “Perfection has its price” tagline, Mogilner says.
Both Miller and Stella are trying to sell beer. But using the concept of either time or money invites consumers to connect with a product—in this case, beer—in different ways. Of the two, the researchers found that a “Miller Time” connection typically leads to more favorable consumer attitudes and purchasing decisions because people tend to identify more closely with products they have experienced. “If you can dial up one’s thinking about time spent experiencing the product relative to thinking about the money spent to own the product, then you tend to get … beneficial effects,” Mogilner says.
But the “Perfection has its price” crowd is also important, Mogilner adds, even though there are fewer examples of consumers connecting to a product primarily because of its acquisition price. “There are cases where thinking about money can actually be a good thing for particular types of consumers, and particular types of products.”

time-or-money

This is not the first time the psychology surrounding time and money has been studied. Not surprisingly, it adds to the chorus that time beats money in the rochambeau of life. As the article explains, “[r]esearchers have found that because time is less fungible—or less easily replaced—than money, losing time tends to be a more painful event for people, particularly when they think about how they are not able to make up for it. Another difference is that people feel less accountable for how they spend their time because it can be more difficult to measure than monetary outlays. These two characteristics—fungibility and ambiguity—are important differentiators in how consumers think about time and money.”

From prior research, they posit that it “seems highly likely that people will also like products more that are more closely connected to the self than products that are not. Evidence from consumer research offers support for this prediction, showing that consumers report more favorable attitudes toward products that reflect their personal identities.” But then they take their hypothesis in a different direction for conventional wisdom, arguing ” that when these feelings of personal connection stem from experiences gained using the product, activating time (vs. money) should lead to more favorable product attitudes and decisions. In contrast, when feelings of personal connection stem more from product possession,” this does not occur, or least not as strongly.

To me, that’s the important revelation in this new study; that a third consideration is equally important: “the extent to which each concept is linked to consumers’ personal experiences, identity and emotions.” To advertisers, they specifically “propose that activating the construct of time while consumers evaluate a product will lead them to focus on their experiences using the product, which generally will heighten their personal connection to that product—their feeling that the product reflects the self.” So between time and money, the clear winner according to the results of their work is time. “By simply directing people’s attention to time, rather than money, you can actually make people make happier decisions.” But the true insight, I think, is linking that to the experience.

Many of us who write about beer, myself included, have waxed philosophically, even poetically, about how drinking beer is a community affair, that it’s best as a shared experience. Indeed, countless ads for beer are set in social situations and in fact I can’t think of one that features solitary drinking — not counting George Thorogood. Although I often drink alone for professional reasons, in most instances it’s considered a societal taboo, carrying very negative associations. While I don’t think it’s necessarily indicative of “problem” drinking or anything so sinister, it’s certainly not desirable.

So while I think their study is applicable universally, it seems more relatable to beer than many other products, because I think drinking beer is such an experiential beverage. I imagine I’m not alone in having all my best drinking memories ones with friends. It’s probably not a stretch to say that’s universal, too. So the idea that time and the emotional experience of spending it with friends seems almost obvious, but it’s still interesting that it’s borne out by this, and other, studies. For me personally, it may not be Miller Time, but it is “beer time.” Who wants to join me?

If you have the time (yes, pun intended) and inclination, the five studies they conducted (and the whole paper) is worth reading. It’s a little dry and steeped in academic jargon, but interesting nonetheless. (It’s also only 15 pages, and three of those are references.)

CNBC Talks Up Boutique Beer

August 27, 2009 By Jay Brooks

cnbc
CNBC did a short segment last week on craft beer, which they insisted on calling “boutique beer” — sigh — because the interviewer was Australian. Hey lady, you’re not in Australia anymore, call it by the name we use here! You don’t see American talking heads calling it soccer, instead of football, on English television, do you? Seriously, is it too much to expect that she’d learn the lingo?

But on the plus side, at least they interviewed people who actually know something about beer. First, there was Paul Gatza, president of the Brewers Association (and the man who compiles and interpret the brewing statistics) so it was great to see him on camera. The other person they interviewed was Justin Phillips of the Beer Table, a beer bar in Brooklyn. Despite the usual ignorance leading to perhaps not the best possible questions, it was still better than usual.