Brew Blog Breaking Busch Beer News

Did you know that Anheuser-Busch is adding a lime-flavored beer to its Bud Light franchise? If you did, you have the Brew Blog to thank. James Arndorfer, a former reporter for Advertising Age magazine, broke the story, with the spin that Anheuser was selling a knock-off of Miller Chill, a lime-brew it introduced last year.

What’s interesting about this is that Brew Blog is sponsored by Miller Brewing Company, a rival beer giant. Arndorfer was hired as a reporter to watchdog Anheuser, the largest brewer in the United States, with more than 50 percent of the market. Miller, with 20 percent of the market share, wants to tap A-B's considerable lead.

Many corporate blogs are little more than shills for their respective product, which is, as we all know, boring, boring, boring. But Miller took the step of hiring a journalist (newspaper reporters whose jobs are in jeopardy, listen up) to write news – especially about its main competitor – in the form of blog posts. The Wall Street Journal quotes Stephen Quigley, an associate professor of public relations at Boston University: "'They are trying to aggressively go around the gatekeepers.' It's something you couldn't do five years ago."

Besides making it much more difficult to control your brand and how it is perceived in the marketplace – ask the presidential candidates about that one -- the move also fires a shot across the bows of newspapers and business publications, which often run press releases about products as news. The effect of beating Anheuser to its own marketing efforts portrayed the company as a copy cat – not exactly the plan.

Brew Blog is aimed at beer industry leaders and executives, but it is available to anyone without charge and is clearly marked as a Miller-sponsored product. (Get the RSS feed URL here.) I wouldn’t expect it to be breaking news about new Miller products or secrets. It is clearly marked as owned by Miller Brewing Company, and yet it is providing real news. Like The Smoking Gun watchdogging newspapers and writers, Brew Blog is already part of the new news conversation.

Jupiter Research’s David Card finds an interesting comment near the end of the Journal story. Harry Schuhmacher, editor of Beer Business Daily, a trade publication subscribers pay for, is upset about the Brew Blog and says that since it’s hurting the trade press (ie. his business), he is writing less about Miller than he did before.

Isn’t that kind of bias one of the main reasons “real” news sources are losing their credibility?