30 Sep 2009
By Paul Mitchell
In its essence, beer is a simple thing. Take good quality hops, barley and yeast and ferment with clean spring water. Sure, there are many complicated processes and tweaks in between, along with vastly differing basic ingredients (there are over 1,500 types of yeast alone), but beer is usually something that brings people together for good times and harmony. So then what is going on in the Canadian beer industry these days? Companies are calling up their lawyers and battling over copyright issues and other silly things that have little to do with beer. Why have things become this complicated?
A few months back, Brick Brewing from Waterloo, ON decided to sue its founder JR Brickman over alleged fraudulent accounting practices. Then Labatt Brewing (a subsidy of a frustratingly much larger international corporation) decided to sue Brick over their Red Baron Lime, that looked eerily similar to Bud Light Lime. Now the news has arrived that Labatt is being sued by Molson Coors Company over the image of mountains on their Kokanee label.
Two particular items of interest strike me as humorous in the latest of these incestuous beer squabbles:
1) Throughout all these complaints, no discussion of similarity or disparity of taste has ever came up. I really do not think that it enters into the equation when marketers decide to target each other. Can it be a coincidence that sales of unique, falvourful micro-beerrs has been increasing every year for the last couple of decades?
2) It seems apparent that although Molson and Labatt have been purchased and repurchased like a predatory food chain by larger international breweries over the years, the century-old rivalry still exists in Canada. Aside from collaborating in the creation of the Beer Store (formerly known as Brewers' Retail) to monopolize retail sales, Molson and Labatt have seldom agreed on anything. For more insight, do yourself a favour and read "The Molson Saga, 1763-1983: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Legendary Brewing Family Through Six Generations" by Shirley E. Woods, Jr. It is a fascinating and fun read about how personal beer rivalries can become.
In the most recent Kokanee case – and please read the article from Marketing Magazine for the gory details – there may be some just cause for confusion. At first the lawsuit seemed to stem from the use of mountain imagery (which, let's face it, would be stupid), until I saw the logo images that were specifically being referred to. Pretty similar indeed. Without taking sides, this is one case that seems to have a simple resolution (ie. let common sense preside) yet will no doubt be bogged down in the courts for years to come.
It recalls the actions during the introduction of Molson Dry back in the early 1990's. Just before taking photography for the beer's packaging, a creative director spritzed the artwork with water to make it look more appetizing. The idea was to make the cases imply condensation to make the beer more appealing, thirst-quenching and refreshing. It was a great look and stood apart until competitors started arguing over intellectual property rights and the true copyrights of water droplets. Interesting but true.
As much as marketing is a vital component of a product's success, there seems to be a good reason why most people lump marketers in with lawyers as the most despised creatures on earth.
Article from Marketing Magazine:
http://www.marketingmag.ca/english/news/marketer/article.jsp?content=20090917_134148_728
In its essence, beer is a simple thing. Take good quality hops, barley and yeast and ferment with clean spring water. Sure, there are many complicated processes and tweaks in between, along with vastly differing basic ingredients (there are over 1,500 types of yeast alone), but beer is usually something that brings people together for good times and harmony. So then what is going on in the Canadian beer industry these days? Companies are calling up their lawyers and battling over copyright issues and other silly things that have little to do with beer. Why have things become this complicated?
A few months back, Brick Brewing from Waterloo, ON decided to sue its founder JR Brickman over alleged fraudulent accounting practices. Then Labatt Brewing (a subsidy of a frustratingly much larger international corporation) decided to sue Brick over their Red Baron Lime, that looked eerily similar to Bud Light Lime. Now the news has arrived that Labatt is being sued by Molson Coors Company over the image of mountains on their Kokanee label.
Two particular items of interest strike me as humorous in the latest of these incestuous beer squabbles:
1) Throughout all these complaints, no discussion of similarity or disparity of taste has ever came up. I really do not think that it enters into the equation when marketers decide to target each other. Can it be a coincidence that sales of unique, falvourful micro-beerrs has been increasing every year for the last couple of decades?
2) It seems apparent that although Molson and Labatt have been purchased and repurchased like a predatory food chain by larger international breweries over the years, the century-old rivalry still exists in Canada. Aside from collaborating in the creation of the Beer Store (formerly known as Brewers' Retail) to monopolize retail sales, Molson and Labatt have seldom agreed on anything. For more insight, do yourself a favour and read "The Molson Saga, 1763-1983: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Legendary Brewing Family Through Six Generations" by Shirley E. Woods, Jr. It is a fascinating and fun read about how personal beer rivalries can become.
In the most recent Kokanee case – and please read the article from Marketing Magazine for the gory details – there may be some just cause for confusion. At first the lawsuit seemed to stem from the use of mountain imagery (which, let's face it, would be stupid), until I saw the logo images that were specifically being referred to. Pretty similar indeed. Without taking sides, this is one case that seems to have a simple resolution (ie. let common sense preside) yet will no doubt be bogged down in the courts for years to come.
It recalls the actions during the introduction of Molson Dry back in the early 1990's. Just before taking photography for the beer's packaging, a creative director spritzed the artwork with water to make it look more appetizing. The idea was to make the cases imply condensation to make the beer more appealing, thirst-quenching and refreshing. It was a great look and stood apart until competitors started arguing over intellectual property rights and the true copyrights of water droplets. Interesting but true.
As much as marketing is a vital component of a product's success, there seems to be a good reason why most people lump marketers in with lawyers as the most despised creatures on earth.
Article from Marketing Magazine:
http://www.marketingmag.ca/english/news/marketer/article.jsp?content=20090917_134148_728
