Coors Puzzled Why Women Don't Like Their Beer
Monday January 12, 2009
The UK division of Coors is trying to figure out why women drink far less beer than men. The easy answer that many a beer marketing department likes to fall back on is that the brews are too bitter, the calories too high and the bottles don't look enough like Barbie's dream house. And almost universally their solution is to drop another fruity, fizzy, 'low-cal' atrocity on the market in some sort of ridiculously labeled bottle - often with liberal use of pinks and pastels.
Of course that's all nonsense. And Carolyn Smagalski does an excellent job of exploding this myth in her recent article Coors UK Gender Prejudice through Project Eve. She points out that many women love lots of bitter foods including dark chocolate, black coffee and salads with bitter greens so that can't be the problem. She goes on to pick apart the other ridiculous aspects of the theory that women have to be treated like little girls with sugar addictions in order to sell them beer.
As to the point about bitterness - if the execs at Coors think that their beer is too bitter for anyone I have to wonder if they've even tried their product in a while. Bitter is most certainly not the word that I would use to describe any of the macro-lagers on the market today.
I hope that someone up the food chain at Molson-Coors or any of the other mega-brewers will read Carolyn's article. Perhaps they can borrow enough sense from it to avoid the next fruity, pink insult.
Of course that's all nonsense. And Carolyn Smagalski does an excellent job of exploding this myth in her recent article Coors UK Gender Prejudice through Project Eve. She points out that many women love lots of bitter foods including dark chocolate, black coffee and salads with bitter greens so that can't be the problem. She goes on to pick apart the other ridiculous aspects of the theory that women have to be treated like little girls with sugar addictions in order to sell them beer.
As to the point about bitterness - if the execs at Coors think that their beer is too bitter for anyone I have to wonder if they've even tried their product in a while. Bitter is most certainly not the word that I would use to describe any of the macro-lagers on the market today.
I hope that someone up the food chain at Molson-Coors or any of the other mega-brewers will read Carolyn's article. Perhaps they can borrow enough sense from it to avoid the next fruity, pink insult.
Comments
Beer is a genderless product. Marketing and distribution have determined the demographic of the ‘audience’. There is plenty of good ale out there that should appeal to both sexes - Coors don’t brew any of it!
Coors needs to hand this over to the Department of Duh. It’s not rocket science! This has nothing to do with flavor. Everybody knows beer tastes good. The fact that few women drink beer is primarily due to MARKETING. Hello! Think “product image” and “target market” here. A few weak, relatively recent attempts to reach women beer drinkers hardly overrides a hundred years male-oriented marketing. B=mS^2 (Beer = Men x Sports squared). It’s the same reason why beer still has trouble overcoming the “wine is for snobs, beer is for slobs” image. Marketing!
You want to get more women drinking beer? Show AVERAGE women in commercials drinking beer, not potential wet t-shirt contestants serving beer to men. (Well, don’t eliminate that entirely. I ain’t gay. Maybe a better phrase would have been “concurrent with…”) Also, tap into Hollywood’s influence. Get writers and directors to replace women sipping wine in scenes to women sipping a beer. It might take a few years, but eventually the public will get used to seeing women drinking beer and it will stop being seen as a “guy drink”. Simple. Now just tell me who at Coors I should send my bill to.
Well said, Russ!
Maybe the women are boycotting beer because of the stupid sexist commercials the beer companies run to sell it.
Besides, beer commercials are targeting men, not women, so it seems that their marketing scheme is working.
Women are more attuned to the calories, carbs, fat, etc. of what they eat AND drink. Coors has a marketing winner with Coors Light but they don’t fully exploit it, neither does any brewery with any of their products.
Next week, I’ll be releasing “Does My BUTT Look BIG In This BEER? Nutritional Values Of 2,000 Worldwide Beers.” It’s a start, but if any brewery wrapped themselves around the nutritional aspects of beer — cooking with it, working the moderate amount of beer into any diet (I’ve even included Weight Watchers POINTS in the book) and target this sort of approach towards women, they’d have something.
I get tired of wine writers and vintners getting away with pushing the nutritional specys of wine, but can’t even tell you the calories, carbs or other nutritional aspects of wine. “It’s good for you!” isn’t much of an argument. 2,000 worldwide beers with calories, carbohydrates, abv and Weight Watchers POINTS is a start, plus a look at average sodium or protein counts in beer. And while it seems ridiculous, way too many people think there’s fat and cholesterol in beer.
Women would appreciate a look at beer and nutrition. It gives them enpowerment and a chance to better control their daily diet.
Careful… you’re teetering on the edge of stereotyping. Assuming a woman will consider drinking beer if she understands it’s nutritional value is like assuming a man will go see a romantic comedy if he knows the political affiliation of the director. It may be interesting information but it won’t affect his/her ability to enjoy the product.
Russ,
Very unscientific poll, but when I bring up the doon-to-be-released book, most men say something like “I drink the beer for the taste. I don’t care about calories.”
On the other hand most women I mention the book to say something like “Weight Watchers POINTS in the book too? That’s a book I’d buy. And I always thought there was fat in beer.”
Out of all books purchased in the U.S. each year, women are the largest group (no pun intended) of book purchasers. That’s a fact, not speculation.
I don’t need a road map to tell me which group I need to target. You just proved it.
I didn’t say the information wouldn’t be useful. I’m just saying that most women I’VE talked to avoid beer not for it’s caloric impact. Rather, many claim they just don’t like the taste, but a few will actually admit that what is really keeping them away is the “image” of beer. “Bar broads” drink beer, “sophisticated ladies” drink wine. As I said before; marketing is to blame for that.
With our current culture trending toward better health consciousness, a book espousing beer’s nutritional value is a fine thing. Just look at recent reports about obesity in this country. We (men and women both) need all the help we can get.
Good luck with your book. I look forward to reading it. (Hopefully, my wife will buy it for me.) However, I still believe it won’t result in a higher percentage of female beer drinkers.
I’m a woman and I love beer. Especially the more expensive beers. Oddly, I like cheap wine, so I guess I’m a wine slob/beer snob? Obviously ads about expensive wines and mass marketed beers don’t affect me much.
Interestingly, if you read up on the history of beer, ladies-in-waiting at the court of Henry VII were allowed a gallon of beer for breakfast alone. Queen Elizabeth drank far more than a gallon a day (my heroine!) but I think a some of that was due to the fact that beer was more sanitary than water. But I’ll bet she loved it!
i agree 100% with the stupid sexist commercials most especially Coors. i know quite a few women who have always enjoyed beer and love to try new types especially microbrews. if the beer companies showed women as intelligent consumers rather than empty headed sex symbols perhaps they would generate more of our business.