Industry members heard numerous calls for beer to fight against threats from spirits this week during the National Beer Wholesaler Association’s (NBWA) Annual Convention in Las Vegas.
However, Mary Guiver, global principle category merchant for beer at Whole Foods, reminded attendees that beer also needs to battle its own past if the category wants to bring in more consumers, during the BREW and Alliance for Women in Beer: Making Moves event Wednesday – an add-on event hosted by the NBWA.
“Spirits did a damn good job of appealing to women and people of color in a way that beer is extraordinarily behind – not even behind, but has to dig itself out of several decades of absolute garbage marketing, positioning women not as consumers of beer, but as trophies or whatever else trash that we saw there in the ’90s and the 2000s even,” Guiver said.
“Beer has some healing to do,” she continued. “And it needs to happen fast if it wants to curb the erosion of sales to spirits and wine.”
More than 335 beer industry members attended Wednesday’s event, co-organized by the Alliance for Women in Beer and BREW. The former focuses on uniting all three tiers of the industry “to transform beer into an exciting industry of opportunity for women,” while the latter, which stands for “Building Relationships and Empowering Women,” aims to “attract connect and elevate women in beer and beverage distribution,” according to the groups’ respective websites.
Guiver spoke on a “state of the union” panel with Mark Anthony Ventures VP and general manager Tracey Sivak and Gulf Distributing SVP of legal and government affairs Rebecca Maisel. The panel was moderated by NBWA CEO and president Craig Purser.
“It’s been the women in the room, in our company anyway, who have said, ‘Hey, we can’t do the same thing over and over again and expect different results,’” Maisel said. “And, at least for us, we have put a massive investment and emphasis on changing our culture.
“We’ve got to be better than our competitors,” she continued. “We’ve got to have the culture of inclusivity.”
Sivak’s own team at Mark Anthony Brands is entirely women – something that was unintentional, but a result of hiring the “best people for the jobs” – and it has helped the company navigate innovation.
“When we’re thinking about what it is that we need to do to attract women into the beer industry, we need to have women in those rooms when those conversations are happening, because we know best what we’re looking for when we shop in these categories,” Sivak said. “This is one step that our company has taken that’s really a benefit long term to hopefully what we’ll market to women in the future.”
Molson Coors CFO Tracey Joubert echoed those sentiments in a conversation with Heineken USA CEO Maggie Timoney, facilitated by Beer Business Daily director of content Jenn Litz-Kirk.
“For a number of years, we have tried to put together an employee population that looks like the consumer group, because how do you market to consumers that you don’t know,” Joubert said. “Women drink a lot of beer. And for many years, we were ignored.”
Joubert recalled the appointment of Michelle St. Jacques as Molson Coors’ chief marketing officer (now chief commercial officer), and St. Jacques’ mission to reflect inclusivity in Molson Coors advertising by showing women “in front of the bar and drinking a beer,” rather than just shown serving it.
“As a finance person, all these studies and surveys have shown that the more diverse you are, the better your financial performance,” Joubert said. “It’s been proven time and time and time again, and it’s not just about women on boards and women in leadership positions, but women across the organization.
“And it’s not just about gender diversity, but all diversity,” Joubert continued.
“When I was working on the marketing team, our leadership team was 50% women, 50% people of color and I think that that changes the conversation about how you attract new drinkers, how you bring different ideas to the marketplace,” St. Jacques said on a later panel with Lawson’s Finest Liquids CEO Adeline Druart, Eight co-founder Ruchi Desai and Constellation Brands chief human resources officer Kris Carey.
“If we all as an industry really focus on making sure we give people reasons to reach for our products every single day for every occasion, we will have a much healthier beer industry moving forward,” St. Jacques continued.
Crowns and Hops CEO and co-founder Beny Ashburn re-emphasized the need for people of color to be brought to the table too, pointing out that while the room of attendees was filled with majority women, there was still a striking minority of people of color present.
During a panel with Lone River founder Katie Beal Brown, Saint Spritz founders Jojo Fletcher and Mallory Patton and The New Bar founder and CEO Brianda Gonzalez, Ashburn encouraged attendees to make sure that people of color have the same access and resources to attend career development events.