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Pabst Sales Zoom Despite No Measured Media Spending

  • Ad Age, Thursday, September 17, 2009 10:43 AM
Jeremy Mullman reports that Pabst Blue Ribbon's sales have grown at the phenomenal rate of 25% this year, according to Information Resources Inc., even though it didn't spend a nickel on measured media in the first six months of the year, according to TNS Media Intelligence. So what's behind the boost?

Mullman asked around, and it seems that PBR is benefiting from the after-taste of a highly effective word-of-mouth campaign from five years ago that made the brand an "'ironic downscale chic' choice for bike messengers and other younger drinkers." Sales surged by nearly 17% in 2004 and have climbed at single-digit rates since, even though prices were hiked this year and it's now one of the higher priced brews in the sub-premium category.

"There's still a bit of hipness to it," said Benj Steinman, editor of Beer Marketer's Insights. "It's an anti-establishment badge," adds a wholesaler. "It seems to play to the retro, nonconformist crowd pretty well."

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