'Tastes Great, Less Filling, and Perfect with Cheese': Beer Tries to Brew Up a New Image

KNOWLEDGE AT WHARTON: Can an industry that has spent a fortune on TV ads featuring mud wrestlers and talking frogs suddenly change its stripes to appeal to the wine-and-cheese, single-malt Scotch crowd? The makers of Budweiser and other brands of beer hope so. Anheuser-Busch and its competitors are developing an industry-wide marketing campaign aimed at overhauling the image of the humble beer and staunching its declining share of the alcoholic beverage market. But Wharton faculty members say that such a radical makeover might be too tall an order, even though the effort could enhance the appeal of microbreweries and perhaps some mass-market beers, like Michelob, that have already carved out a higher-end image.

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