Miller, Molson marketing strategy vital to merger

NEW YORK -- A-B, No. 1 in the U.S. beer market with nearly a 50% share, spent about $511 million on advertising last year, according to TNS Media Intelligence. That dwarfs the spending of either No. 2 SABMiller or No. 3 Molson Coors, which total about 30% of the market. But combined, their ad spending was about $422 million.

That firepower could set off a real battle, likely to be fought online as much as on TV.

"This could reopen the beer wars, but looking at the audience, this can be as much a digital battle as in traditional media," says Brad Adgate, director of research for ad buyer Horizon Media. "The heaviest beer drinkers tend to be the same young men who are consumers of new media."

Ad tracker Jupiter Research reports that males ages 25 to 34 watch less TV than average consumers — 14 hours vs. 18 hours — and spend more time on the Internet — 20 hours vs. 18 hours.

Target-market males "use it for work and play, and are more adaptive of devices like iPhone and BlackBerry to access the Web on the go," says Emily Riley, an advertising analyst with Jupiter.

TV gets about 75% of the ad expenditures, TNS says. Brewers wouldn't say how much of the rest they devote to online.

But A-B — a master TV advertiser with events such as the Super Bowl locked up in long-term deals — has gone flat online with its costly, high-profile Bud.TV.

Miller Lite had online success last year with its TV and Web "Man Laws" campaign. Young male users created and posted hundreds of rules on the site. Miller also showed innovation in TV spending recently, getting its fast-growing Miller Chill, brewed with lime and salt, written into a Late Night with Conan O'Brien script.

Coors Light's novel Happy Hour campaign this year included a "4:53 Silver Bullet train" shooting across websites popular with men ages 21 to 34. In August, it shifted gears to sponsor Foxsports.com's Fantasy Football corner.