Mountain Man Brewing Company Perform a SWOT analysis for Mountain Man Brewing Company. (When you are discussing the opportunities and threats, please try to find at least one “issue” relating to each...

MOUNTAIN MAN BREWING COMPANY 1
Running Head: MOUNTAIN MAN BREWING COMPANY: BRINGING THE BRAND TO
LIGHT
Mountain Man Brewing Company: Bringing the Brand to Light
MOUNTAIN MAN BREWING COMPANY 2
SWOT Analysis
Strengths:
High Brand Equity and Reputation amongst customers: The case mentioned in the article
makes it apparent that mountain man owns a strong brand position in the market and it received
much pride from customers since a very long time. Mountain man is known as a beer that
generates an aura of authenticity and it's one of the best known as regional level. Working class
males have a special attraction for the brand and it has high brand awareness, which is critical to
any brand's success (Abelli, 2007, p. 2).
Customer’s Loyalty: Mountain Man enjoys high customer loyalty as well and is on the
priority of the customers. Its loyal customers willingly accept the brand over any other
competing brand and have made a contribution to push it to the heights. It is considerable that its
blue collar customers accounts a large part of its sale and the loyalty rate of Mountain Man lager
alone is 53%, which larger compared to competitive products (Abelli, 2007, p.5).
High Quality and Distinct Flavor: The distinct flavor and high quality of beer, which
Mountain Man has maintained for a long period of time, is its major strength that separates it
from other premium brands, who are its strongest competitors. Customers also have perception
for Mountain Man lager as a high quality product. Moreover, its distinct facets include its
smoothness, water content, its unique bitter flavor and its little higher than average alcohol
content. Overall, the high quality distinctive features of Mountain Man act as the prime strength
of the company (Abelli, 2007, p. 3).
High Position in Premium Segment: Mountain Man has a remarkably strong option in the
premium segment due to which it is known as West Virgina’s Beer and even after the shrinking
of the beer market in the region the company survived along with four other breweries and is still
profitable even though its sales are declining. It has a large share in the premium segment
(Abelli, 2007, p. 5).
Awards and Recognition: Mountain Man Lager has such enormous customers’
recognition and support that audience rated it as the best known regional beer, with a response
rate of 67%. Additionally, it also got “Best Beer in West Virgina” for eight consecutive years,
also won Best Beer in Indiana and was chosen for the “American Championship Lager”. All
these awards and recognition itself presents the power of the company and makes it clear that it
has the ability to leverage other wards, as well (Abelli, 2007, p. 2).
Weaknesses:
Limited and thin resources: Mountain man has not many resources available in the
current period of time because of its deteriorating sales and revenues. The company lacks the
resources necessary to comply with the marketing efforts large, national and light beer
companies. This deficiency of financial, marketing and other vital resources are company’s
major weaknesses and can limit its access to customers (Abelli, 2007, p. 3).
High Reliance on Grass Root Marketing: The Company has relied heavily on grass root
marketing strategy in order to develop brand awareness amongst customers. With the help of
grass root marketing only, it extends the message of its beer quality by utilizing word of mouth.
In the current era, when there are multiple other cost effective channels to advertise, this
traditional advertising method not provides much exploration to the company. In order to reach
other customer segments it is vital to overcome this weakness (Abelli, 2007, p. 5).
MOUNTAIN MAN BREWING COMPANY 3
Declining Revenues: The revenues of the company are declining constantly in the
premium beer segment due to transformation of the customer’s interest. In the year 2005, the
revenues of the company are down 2% and due to enhancing downward pressure, the company is
facing challenges to endure profitably (Abelli, 2007, p. 7).
Female Customers are Few: The company has not many female customers accounted for
its Mountain Man Lager beer and the ratio is only 19%, which is limiting its reach to both groups
of customers. The beer is still known as blue-collar beer of low income customers because of
which, it has not been able to target other customers, which are capable to generate more
revenues (Abelli, 2007, p. 8).
Present only on OFF-Premise Locations: Mountain Man currently exists only on off-
premise locations, such as liquor stores, supermarkets, etc. and do not exist much in on-premise
locations, which company’s weakness. The company is not targeting customers in restaurants
and bars, which accounts for large customer base (Abelli, 2007, p. 3).
Opportunities:
Political/Legal: The world beer market is expected to experience an enormous growth
and in 2010 also the world beer industry recorded 1% expansion. It has also been expected that
there will be a considerable rise in the beer industry of Latin America, and Asia Pacific. This
presents a great opportunity for Mountain Man to extend its reach with its products.
Economy: The sale of beer is at mature phase and growth rate in the future is expected.
This also provides a vital opportunity for the company to target younger and female customers as
well as customers of on-premise locations and get their attention. Light beer sales are also rising
enormously and it accounts for 50.4% of total volume and current customers also prefer light
beer. The beer industry is much more resilient to the economic downturn.
Socio-cultural: Currently, customers' preferences in the beer market are changing and
they are shifting towards light beer and it is the rapidly enhancing product....