Mountain Man Brewing Company Case Summary

Mountain Man Brewing Company’s revenue has decreased 2% in 2005 within the past year. Challenged by the company’s ability to stay profitable and continue being a market leader in their area of the beer industry among the larger beer labels, the company’s future president, Chris Prangel, has found an opportunity to expand their product line and create a light beer. By doing so, Prangel hopes to utilize the company’s strong brand awareness that MMBC has worked effortlessly to create, and introduce a newer, lighter drink that would take the same ideals and quality that their signature product, Mountain Man Lager, has and introduce a lighter beer into the steadily increasing light beer market. However, in doing so, Prangel is faced with both the

One solution to expand their market would be to introduce Mountain Man Light through brand extension. By doing so, the new product will be able to appeal to additional beer drinkers who are interested in beer with a lighter taste, fewer calories, but still has great quality. This would also include women, who account for only 19% of the market segment. When pitching his idea to MMBC, Chris’s Mountain Man Light product launch presentation should focus on including a detailed marketing plan that demonstrates how the new, extended product will not only be profitable by taking advantage of the brand’s value and recognition, but also increase awareness of the company’s original product, Mountain Man Lager. When advertising, the new product could further be targeted towards the younger generation of drinkers by creating awareness through online media and social networking sites. When marketing Mountain Man Light, the company should explore different options of the four P’s marketing mix. The product itself will be unique to other competitors in the beer market and should portray a young, clean image in order to appeal to the younger target segment of young drinkers. The bottle should be of a different color than the Lager, perhaps light brown in order to communicate to the audience of the “lighter” qualities that the light beer has (lighter taste, less calories, lighter alcohol content). In order to promote and place the lighter beer, MMBC should focus on introducing their light beer to locations where younger drinkers frequently visit such as trendier bars. Also, due to the success of Mountain Man Lager, the new product extension may have a less difficult time obtaining shelf space and generating product awareness among retailers as well as distributors. In order to entice new as well as existing customers, MMBC would need to price the light