Domestic beer sales also have been aided by the emergence of such aggressively marketed brands as Michelob Dry and Miller Genuine Draft, as well as the rise of micro-breweries that churn out specialty beers.Īmong imports, Heineken, Beck’s, Moosehead, St. The recent problems facing the beer industry have hit imports harder than their U.S. Said Pirko: “It rose like a fad, and it fell like a fad.”Ĭorona also was affected by the apparent decline in beer drinking at restaurants and bars, where it realizes about 35% of its sales, Mazzoni said.Īlthough figures are hard to come by, “Anecdotally, all restaurants will tell you that their sales of alcohol are down, down, down,” said Jeff Prince, senior director of the National Restaurant Assn. Simply put, the trendy beverage became less trendy. Meanwhile, the social climate in which Corona flourished was changing. “It took away the uniqueness of Corona,” said Mazzoni. By last year, Miller Genuine Draft, Miller Lite, Coors, Budweiser and Michelob Dry all had trotted out new, long-necked bottles of their own. Corona’s distinctive long-necked bottle had not gone unnoticed by major U.S. Quickly, other problems followed the rumor. “It’s an amazing bit of American sociology.” “Its decline began when the rumor began,” said Steinman. In 1988, sales at the wholesale level slid 7%. Although the story was unfounded-and a rival wholesaler in Nevada declared so in an out-of-court settlement-the tale apparently took a toll.Ĭorona’s furious growth rate of 170% in 1986 shrank to 67% the following year. In mid-1987, a rumor spread that the beer was contaminated with urine. “Logistically, we just couldn’t keep up,” Mazzoni recalled.Īnd then Corona-mania was over. distributors had to be placed on limited allocations. Desperate to get out the product, Corona employees loaded the beer onto container ships near Mazatlan where it was hauled up the West Coast by sea. Mazzoni had to make emergency visits to California, where retailers threatened a boycott because they thought he was favoring other regions with supplies. wholesalers sold 22.5 million cases of Corona in 1987, compared to 31 million cases of Heineken, according to Impact, an industry publication.ĭemand was almost impossible to meet. Remarkably, the upstart Mexican brew seemed to be closing the gap with top-ranked Heineken. From 1984 to mid-1987, its sales more than quadrupled. The combined effect of these elements was volcanic: Without any television ads, Corona sales blazed past such established beer imports as Molson and Labatt’s of Canada and Beck’s of West Germany to capture second place in the category. Introduced in late 1981, Corona’s light taste dovetailed perfectly with a growing consumer trend toward light-tasting beer. Upscale baby boomers drank it up: “Imported beer allowed people to make a statement about themselves,” said Mazzoni, adding that “the clear bottle with the long neck said to the world, ‘Hey, I’m different.’ ” In this environment of status-conscious consumption, Corona’s long-necked bottle and spray-painted label gave it a distinctive look its import status a certain cachet.
trade deficit was not yet a headline story, but Americans had started to buy more imports than ever-not just beer, of course, but expensive clothes, automobiles, sophisticated electronic equipment. To understand the Corona phenomenon, it helps to recall something of America’s social climate in the early 1980s, a time of rising status consciousness, a time when consumer spending was glamorized in the media and fueled by tax cuts. “There never was a fad like it, a phenomenon like it,” said Steinman, who has followed events in the beer industry for more than 20 years. Yet some of the issues affecting Corona are unique to the brand itself. Overall, sales of imported beer actually fell 8% last year, according to industry sources, reflecting tough competition from the lower-priced, U.S.-made brews. Rising awareness of health and fitness also seems to have limited the amount of beer and other alcoholic beverages Americans consume: “The (beer) market has been static for the past couple of years,” said Paul Gillette, publisher of California Beverage Hotline, a trade newsletter.
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