According to a story in today's Wall Street Journal, Budweiser plans to exclusively focus future marketing and advertising efforts on the 20-something demographic. Anheuser-Busch InBev, the beer's parent company, told the Journal that internal research shows that 44% of drinkers between the ages of 21 and 27 have never even tried Budweiser. A number of factors, among them the rise of craft beers and microbrews, the cannibalization of Budweiser sales by Bud Light and Coors Light, and increased marketing and promotion of wine and other hard liquors as a more sophisticated alternative to beer generally has contributed to a decline in Budweiser sales of more than 50% since its peak in 1988.
But changing a brand's perception isn't easy, particularly one that consumers think says something about their identity. Just ask McDonald's, which is going through a similar repositioning in the face of millennial flight. With that in mind, we devised a poll to see what exactly Budweiser is up against.
