New data from Restaurant Sciences, a company tracking food and beverage sales, shows that the price of sub-premium beers (the likes of Budweiser, Coors Light, Miller Lite, Pabst Blue Ribbon) has increased 6.8 percent over the last few months. In contrast, the ultra-premium segment (the ever-popular craft beer market) has only increased by 1.8 percent.
Pabst Blue Ribbon has had a decade-long courtship with the young, alternative (dare we say hipster?) crowd. (Matt Wild over at the AV Club investigated the beer’s recent popularity back in 2010.) But are they to blame for the price increase?
Hard to say, but the numbers are compelling. As “below premium” beers decreased in sales, PBR steadily rose: 25.4 percent in 2009, 17.6 percent in 2010 and 13.8 percent in 2011, according to Beer Marketer’s Insights. That trend started back in 2002.
Turns out, the price of PBR has been on the rise for awhile. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. In 2009, Jeremy Mullman at Advertising Age, attributed the increase to a pre-recession word-of-mouth campaign that reaped the benefits after drinkers were forced to cut back. “Think of it as conspicuous downscale consumption, or something like it.” Almost four years after that conclusion, PBR is still going strong.
Ever since PBR caught wind of the underground appreciation for the brand, they subtly evolved their marketing efforts to make further inroads into the market without scaring away the hipsters like baby deer. The New York Times wrote about one of those efforts back in 2003.
Maybe the hipsters are responsible for the fact that we now have to pay pennies on the dollar more for PBR, but don’t be too hard on them. They never saw it coming.
(Pardon me while I excuse myself. All of this research has made me thirsty.)
