Picture
this. You are lounging on a faraway beach and have nothing to do but listen to
the sound of rolling waves. The routines in your life are distant memories. In
their place, palm trees rustle and turquoise water stretches to the horizon. A
beautiful somebody relaxes at your side, safe and free.
If this
sounds like an upgrade on life in lockdown, you now know why the marketing for
Corona beer has been so successful. In the 1980s Grupo Modelo, the Mexican
brewer that created it, began exporting Corona to the United States, projecting
an image of “fun, sun and beach”. Unlike branding for other beers, which merely
invited drinkers to unwind, Corona offered escape.
Save for
Huawei, a Chinese telecoms mammoth, Corona is the most valuable global brand
not from the rich world, according to Interbrand, a consultant. Or it was: 2020
has been riddled with rotten luck.
Grupo
Modelo began producing Corona in Mexico City in the 1920s. The crown that
adorns the beer’s label and bottle-cap first appeared in 1963. Soon afterwards,
Corona beer began to conquer the world. AB InBev, the giant brewer, bought
Grupo Modelo in 2013. By 2018, estimated Forbes, Corona sales
reached $6.6bn.
In 2020,
thanks to the pandemic, the word “corona” is now a battlefield on which glamour
and calamity collide. Whether “corona”, a year or two from now, elicits
thoughts of beaches and limes or of hospital beds and quarantines, is
potentially a question worth billions.
The first
shots fired in this battle were jokes. As the coronavirus spread, amateur
comedians flocked to Corona’s Instagram account. Some sardonically urged the
brewer to “please stop killing innocent people”. Others suggested that Corona
change its name to something with fewer negative connotations, “like Ebola”.
Corona’s social-media team stopped posting on March 13th.
A brand’s
power lies in its ability to trigger subconscious associations in consumers’
minds. But who can now hear the word “corona” without thinking of plague? Many
cite the unfortunate precedent of Ayds, a weight-loss candy whose sales
plummeted in the 1980s. Its makers changed its name.
Any
evidence of lasting damage to the brand will be slow to emerge, points out Tom
Meyvis, a professor of marketing at the Stern School of Business, at New York
University.
Those who
know Corona note that it has defied the odds to reach the top. Mexico had no
beer-making pedigree with which to win foreign drinkers’ trust, but images of
Mexican beaches soon became a novel, glamorous and world-beating selling-point.
Corona’s transparent glass bottle causes the beer to spoil easily when exposed
to sunlight, and a “nothing to hide” marketing slogan was a hit.
Corona took
advantage of loosening trade barriers to enter new markets, and became a
national ambassador for Mexico in faraway places. By the 1990s the secretary
for commerce, Jaime Serra Puche, was boasting that “Mexico exports two fluids:
crude oil and Corona”.
In April the
Mexican government belatedly ordered the closure of all non-essential
activities. Unlike making wine in France or beer in the United States, brewing
in Mexico was declared “non-essential”. Within weeks the national supply of
Corona dried up. Local supermarkets in
Mexico City have neither Corona nor any other domestic brew left on its shelves;
there are only a few imported beers to choose from.
It is a
happy story cut short by the unlucky events of 2020.
- But what is Corona to do if damage to the brand is unavoidable?
- Should they change the name? Should they keep it?
From The Economist (edited)
