Dmitry Linkov

Differentiation and anchors: beer

March 14th, 2007. Published under General. 1 Comment.

Differentiation is in all product categories. But there still are anchors on which other products are based on. Here is an example of beer:
1. Lager – the most popular and most widespread (I believe). Let’s say that Beck will be the anchor, but actually any beer can be the anchor in this category.
2. Dark beer – and here Guinness is the anchor with no doubt.
3. Non-filtered and non-filtered dark – here Czech beer like Franziskaner, Krusovice are anchors (in my mind).
4. With some flavor, but still beer – Hoegaarden is the anchor in this category.
5. More alcohol but still tasty and still beer – Belgian Leffe is the anchor here.
6. Light beer – Velvet.

Of course there are a lot of other types of beer. But if you take a consumer, and give him to try all of the beer that is on the market – these are the anchors categories he will think about while trying. Of course everybody has it’s own favorites, but in general there are 6 tastes, and six anchors for every taste. Some of the anchors are very clear to identify (like Guinness) some of them are not (like in lager category).
So what is the point of all this? The point is – 6 categories it’s so tiny! Dear producers, is this all you can imagine – 6 types of beer? Simple statistics shows that there are so many things that can be invented (beer cocktails, mixed beer, really alcoholic beer, beer without gas, foam beer, hot beer etc.), there are so many edges not yet discovered.
So keep working and keep creating new markets.