Case Stduy on Marketing
2069
MAY 28, 2007
HEIDE ABELLI
Mountain Man Brewing Company: Bringing the Brand to Light
It was February 20, 2006, in the New River coal region of West Virginia. Chris Prangel, a recent MBA graduate, had returned home a year earlier to manage the marketing operations of the Mountain Man Beer Company (MMBC), a family-owned business he stood to inherit in five years, when his father, Oscar Prangel, the president and owner, retired. Mountain Man brewed one beer, Mountain Man Lager, also known as “West Virginia’s beer.” Due to changes in beer drinkers’ preferences, the company was now experiencing declining sales for the first time in the company’s history. In response, Chris wanted to launch Mountain Man Light, a “light beer” formulation of Mountain Man Lager, in the hope of attracting younger drinkers to the brand. Over the previous six years, light beer sales in the United States had been growing at a compound annual rate of 4%, while traditional premium beer sales had declined annually by the same percentage. Earlier that day, Chris met with a regional advertising agency about a marketing campaign to launch Mountain Man Light. Back in his office, he watched an agency videotape from a focus group. He observed a half-dozen participants, 21 to 55 years old, showing various reactions to proposals to extend the Mountain Man brand to a new light beer product. • • A man in his fifties leaned into the facilitator and declared, “Mountain Man Light? Come on, I’m not interested in light beer. Just don’t mess with Mountain Man Lager.” A man in his early thirties, dressed in jeans and a camouflage shirt, stared at a mock advertisement and shouted, “Fancy barbecue parties, with puppies running around…. What do they have to do with Mountain Man?” A man, in his mid-twenties and fashionably-dressed, said, “Sounds pretty corporate… I think the beer is too strong for me anyway. I’ll leave it to these guys to drink.” A woman in her early twenties wearing low-rise jeans and a
MAY 28, 2007
HEIDE ABELLI
Mountain Man Brewing Company: Bringing the Brand to Light
It was February 20, 2006, in the New River coal region of West Virginia. Chris Prangel, a recent MBA graduate, had returned home a year earlier to manage the marketing operations of the Mountain Man Beer Company (MMBC), a family-owned business he stood to inherit in five years, when his father, Oscar Prangel, the president and owner, retired. Mountain Man brewed one beer, Mountain Man Lager, also known as “West Virginia’s beer.” Due to changes in beer drinkers’ preferences, the company was now experiencing declining sales for the first time in the company’s history. In response, Chris wanted to launch Mountain Man Light, a “light beer” formulation of Mountain Man Lager, in the hope of attracting younger drinkers to the brand. Over the previous six years, light beer sales in the United States had been growing at a compound annual rate of 4%, while traditional premium beer sales had declined annually by the same percentage. Earlier that day, Chris met with a regional advertising agency about a marketing campaign to launch Mountain Man Light. Back in his office, he watched an agency videotape from a focus group. He observed a half-dozen participants, 21 to 55 years old, showing various reactions to proposals to extend the Mountain Man brand to a new light beer product. • • A man in his fifties leaned into the facilitator and declared, “Mountain Man Light? Come on, I’m not interested in light beer. Just don’t mess with Mountain Man Lager.” A man in his early thirties, dressed in jeans and a camouflage shirt, stared at a mock advertisement and shouted, “Fancy barbecue parties, with puppies running around…. What do they have to do with Mountain Man?” A man, in his mid-twenties and fashionably-dressed, said, “Sounds pretty corporate… I think the beer is too strong for me anyway. I’ll leave it to these guys to drink.” A woman in her early twenties wearing low-rise jeans and a