The Merchandising Super Bowl

In the Super Bowl, the New England Patriots narrowly defeated the Carolina Panthers with a last-second field goal. In beer aisles, perennial champ Anheuser-Busch Inc. routed upstart Coors Brewing Co.Super Bowl Sunday provides the single biggest one-day retail event for beer, with sales typically spiking by more than 10% in the days preceding the game. Therefore, it's crucial for beer brands to strengthen in-store presence in January.In this year's "contest," Anheuser-Busch was the favorite for several reasons, the most important of which is its ownership of the nation's top two beer brands, Budweiser and Bud Light (which together commanded a 26.4% market share and $2.3 billion in sales in the 52 weeks ended Jan. 25, according to Information Resources Inc., Chicago). Odds-makers also favored Anheuser-Busch because, in recent years, the company has made itself synonymous with Super Bowl advertising, securing exclusive category rights for the game's broadcast and consistently winning viewer polls for producing the best ads.Coors Brewing Co. was the upstart because it committed $300 million in 2002 to trump Anheuser-Busch (as well as Miller Brewing Co.) and become the official beer sponsor of the National Football League. The company did so in large part to give its brands a stronger platform for in-store merchandising -- a hook that would entice retailers to provide the incremental display space normally dominated by Anheuser-Busch. Moreover, Coors' status as the third-largest U.S. beer maker certainly classifies it as an underdog (Coors Light had $596.9 million in sales and a 6.9% market share, Coors $90.4 million and 1.1% in the same 52-week period, according to IRI).Throughout January, Coors made ample use of the official Super Bowl logo to offer retailers a variety of P-O-P materials, including wall banners and posters, header cards, inflatables, pennants, base wraps and cooler clings. It negotiated with retailers for major placement at entrances and on endcaps, and hosted an on-pack consumer promotion awarding tickets to the Super Bowl in 2005. The effort was not unsuccessful. For the month, display activity in supermarket, mass and drug accounts increased 2.3% compared with January 2003, according to field data compiled by Mosaic InfoForce, Chicago.Although Anheuser-Busch no longer has the NFL sponsorship, it does have an evergreen (and trademarked) promotion called Bud Bowl, which launched in 1989 as a series of TV spots and has run in various incarnations almost continually since then.This year's Bud Bowl campaign was a pure merchandising push. In addition to an array of P-O-P, the collateral included a coupon book with $17.85 in savings "on all of your game day essentials." Anheuser-Busch lined up 15 partnering brands, including Keebler, Pringles, Tyson and Pace, to create a turnkey cross-merchandising program.Many accounts executed the program as planned. Some devised their own merchandising mixes around the Bud case displays. All told, Anheuser-Busch's display activity increased by almost 10% for the month.In the critical week before the game, Anheuser-Busch's display activity jumped nearly 20%, while Coors' rose 7.1%. In the post-game analysis, Coors put forth a solid effort (much like Carolina), but Anheuser-Busch earned the victory.Beyond the BowlAnheuser-Busch is working to alleviate the historical post-Super Bowl beer sales lull this year. In February, the company partnered with 7-Eleven to turn Valentine's Day into a sales-lifting event.Called "Fresh Buds," the joint promotion guaranteed that all Budweiser bottles sold in 7-Eleven outlets on Valentine's Day would carry "born on" dates of Feb. 13 or Feb. 14. A-B's distributors added extra trucks to delivery routes to fulfill the promise. Two-day sales rivaled those recorded Super Bowl weekend, according to Jim Keyes, 7-Eleven's chief executive officer. The partners are working on a similar ef-fort for Tax Day on April 15, Keyes says.

The Merchandising Super Bowl

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