How Anheuser-Busch used a negative ad campaign against Boston Beer 15+ years ago
At the time (mid-1990s), many Americans had only a nebulous notion of what craft beer was and how it was made. So when Anheuser-Busch launched a series of negative ads criticizing Boston Beer Company for using contract breweries to produce some of their beer, the ads were strikingly effective. Believing the ads were unfair, Koch appealed to the Better Business Bureau in 1997, who ultimately ruled in his favor.
Part of a larger piece on craft beer vs. big beer. Oh, and here’s more on the 1996 campaign for those of you like me who weren’t even teenagers yet. Dateline even ran an “exposé” on craft contract brewing.
More >> US News and World Report.
Breweries: Anheuser-Busch, The Boston Beer Company
Typical of the crap ab has always done to stifle better products from lobbying bottle size laws, burying brands with the distributor network to negative ads it is a never ending list instead of making better beer (which they are actually capable of doing).