Marketing In Monopolistic Competition: The Case of Craft Beer

Bachik, Ben

Marketing In Monopolistic Competition: The Case of Craft Beer

Persistent URL

https://dspace.allegheny.edu/handle/10456/50741

Author(s)

Bachik, Ben

Date Issued

March 28, 2020

Abstract

The entirety of my market research and industry evaluation surrounds the idea of one specific question. Do localized marketing strategies limit growth in monopolistic competition, specifically for microbreweries? When I refer to monopolistic competition, I will be specifically looking at the market of craft beer. Being a craft beer connoisseur, this topic truly excites me because I have always enjoyed drinking craft beer as opposed to mainstream mass-produced beer. Since I began drinking beer, I have always been more drawn to the personalized and unique drinking experience that craft beer has to offer. In this paper, I will unveil how I evaluated different marketing strategies to analyze how firms in a monopolistically competitive market create a brand for themselves and find success. When looking at the craft beer industry, along with other monopolistically competitive industries like restaurants, barbershops, and bars, we don’t see a constant fixation to just make money. Instead, we see a group of companies motivated to not only offer consumers a quality product but more importantly, a quality experience. This type of company appeals heavily to the millennial population in the United States. With this deeper level of thought being put into the decision-making process, millennials are more likely to choose a more socially responsible company like a craft brewery, rather than a large brewing company like MillerCoors and Pabst (Rayapura, 2014). But, to really understand these breweries and what they stand for, we must dive deep into the history of craft beer specifically the roots of how craft beer made its way to the United States of America.

Major

Economics

First Reader(s)

Nonnenmacher, Tomas W.