Schlitz your wrists
My oh my, they either bank on the Baby Boomers’ early senility or on their laid back sense of humour that comes with age. In any case, Pabst Brewing has re-launched Schlitz beer, the erstwhile largest-selling beer in the U.S. which infamously went under in the 1970s.
If there’s been a beer brand that was killed off by its makers it was Schlitz. In the 1950s and 1960s, Schlitz from Milwaukee was the largest-selling beer in America. It was, company literature notes, “the archetypal working man’s beer.” Many Americans who are now in their sixties and belong to the Baby Boomer generation that became political through the Vietnam War or anti-political through Hippie Culture - they all would have grown up with Schlitz beer. That’s true. In those days 18 was still the legal age for drinking beer.
However, for some reason or other Schlitz decided to change its brewing formula in 1976. According to Philip van Munching (see his Beer Blast), Schlitz made a change in the foam stabiliser it was using. However, the new stabiliser actually sped up the breaking down of the beer by bonding with proteins to create haze almost immediately. Suddenly Schlitz found itself shipping out beer that looked “snot-ridden”. Yuk. To make matters worse, the brewer declined to recall its beer for months. Sales began to plummet and Schlitz began a long steady decline from the top three U.S. brewers.
A strike at the company in 1981 ended with the brand being purchased by Stroh Brewery in Detroit, which itself sold out in 1999. The label passed to Pabst Brewing and survived only in cans. Now Pabst is bringing back the “classic 1960s formula”, and marketing it to “guys who remember the 1960s, when the cars were cooler, the athletes didn’t cheat, and the beer was better.”
Pabst Brewing, itself an anomaly as it does not own a brewery any longer but has all its beers brewed by SABMiller, has embarked on a course of gradual self-elimination. Putting no advertising money behind its brands, the company which counts Old Style, Old Milwaukee and Pabst Blue Ribbon among its line-up of inexpensive beer brands, has seen sales volume erode for several years. Last year, Pabst Brewing sold 6.1 million barrels, down 6.2 percent from 6.5 million barrels in 2006, according to Beer Marketer’s Insights. In 2000, Pabst sold 10.8 million barrels of beer.
With Pabst it is only a matter of time before its beer sales zero out. But before that happens the brewer is going to give the world a revived Schlitz. Since April Schlitz has been available in Chicago. Last year Pabst began selling it in Minneapolis and Tampa, Florida. Commentators in the U.S. have already remarked on the unusualness of marketing the beer — other than denture adhesive or long-term-care insurance — to anyone over 50.
A series of web-based ads, which can be viewed at www.schlitzgusto.com, feature a man in his 50s. One of the ads takes place in a bar. A twentysomething is looking at his cell phone. An off-camera voice says that the “gusto” of new Schlitz is “instant messaging — face to face.” The camera then moves to two Baby Boomers, one fiftysomething, the other a little older, laughing together over a couple of beers.
Nostalgia often works quite well in marketing. But in this case? Others have complained that Pabst has overpriced the new old Schlitz. But come on, Baby Boomers can afford to pay good money to have their memories of “yuf “revived.
