Boston Beer

1a. There are several reasons BBC should focus on the light beer market. It is true that their sales were decreasing from year to year but I think there is nothing wrong with the product itself. The problem is on the marketing and management system. It was proved from the result of the consumer taste survey. Most of people said that lightship beer had better taste, better color and smell compare to Bud light, Coors Light, and Amstel Light and the result stated that lightship beer was in the first place. We got almost the same result from the blind test that is held in several countries including USA and Canada. Another important reason is the demand for the light beer is relative high from the consumers. People said that the advantage of drinking light beer because it contains lower calorie. Based on the field study, light beers accounted for five of the top ten best-selling beers in supermarkets. So, it is very pity if BBC stops producing light beer.
b. There are several reasons why BBC should not pursue the light beer market. They did try launching the light beer named lightship. They did invest a lot of effort and money in lightship but they did not get that much return as they expected. Rhonda Kallman, Vice President of Sales, said “an additional 2% growth in Samuel Adams is more than six times what we are doing in light beer.” This phrase tells us that they are better not to invest in light beer because it is very unprofitable for the company. Also, if we looked at exhibit 2, the sales of Boston lightship were decreasing gradually from 1992 to 1997.

2. I agree with the HBS team recommendation. I think Amstel Light was very successful in the light beer product, so it is a good idea to have the same target segment. My perception is BBC is categorized as a newbie in the light beer category and we all know that it is very hard for every industry to launch a new product. The failure on lightship product is indeed not on the quality of the product. As we know