Blue Moon, a Belgian-style wheat beer, is one of the fastest-growing craft brews in the U.S. Craft brews are usually made by small companies, but Blue Moon's pedigree is Molson Coors Brewing Co., the
third-largest brewer in the country.
Molson Coors won't talk in detail about its strategy for the beer. But as the beer has become more widely known, so have some of its tactics: playing
down the beer's connection to its corporate parent; avoiding TV ads; using distributors that know how to sell smaller brands; and targeting key markets and accounts.
In what turned out to
be a masterstroke of marketing, Keith Villa, Blue Moon's creator, decided that the company should suggest that bars serve the beer with an orange slice garnishing the rim of the glass. "When people
saw a beer with an orange slice in it," says Jim Doney, president of Chicago Beverage Systems LLC, they wanted to try it.
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