WILL WHITE HOUSE KEGGERFEST BOOST BUD LIGHT SALES?

BUD LIGHT BEER OF CHOICE AT OBAMA KEGGER SUMMIT
AB-InBev DISTRIBUTORS BRACE FOR SALES SURGE
WILL YUSEF JACKSON STEP UP TO THE PLATE?

Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld

By Michael Horne

And The Milwaukee World Hound Dog Team

[ABOVE: Distribution Territory for River North Sales & Service LLC, Chicago, Yusef Jackson, CEO. Note exclusion of Little Italy from the firm's route.]

Well, we might as well shake the keg a bit before President Obama taps it for his White House visitors today. The president's announcement that he will drink Bud Light while hosting Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge, MA Police Department has drawn perhaps more reaction than anticipated.

[LEFT: It appears the president is not unaccustomed to commercial beers. I call this one a Marie Antoinette Light because it's got no head.]

Some say the president chose Bud Light, the world's largest selling beer, because it is emblematic of Middle American tastes.

Others say he chose Bud because it is identified with Missouri, a swing state. There are those who say Obama should have a Miller or a Coors since that firm is headquartered in Chicago, while there is a vocal contingent who says Obama should show his quichier side and pour a nice, robust craft beer. In fact Flying Dog Brewery of Frederick Maryland, is outside the White House making such a demand. As Politico noted, "It wouldn't be a contrived White House event without a contrived protest."

However, Obama's choice of Bud Light should not displease his fellow townsman Jesse Jackson, who once launched a boycott of Anheuser Busch products.

In 1982 Jackson launched the "This Bud's a Dud" boycott of A-B products since the firm only had one minority distributor (of 950 total.) The boycott languished until the late 1990's when minority employees of Chicago's River North Sales & Service LLC complained about their circumstances within the firm.


By 1998 the boycott was over, and River North was sold to Jackson's son Yusef Jackson, [left] then 28 years old, with no experience in the beer (or any other) business. He was joined in the firm by his brother Jonathan Jackson.
Ten years later, the Jackson beer enterprise does not seem to be doing particularly well in the highly competitive Chicago market. According to Crain's Chicago Business of July 19th, 2009, Chicago is the only major market in the country in which AB is not the dominant player. That distinction belongs to Miller Coors, which has a 50% share of the Windy City beer trade, vs. 24% for AB, and may give Milwaukeeans a further insight into why the merged firm located there, and not here, or in Denver.
Over the past ten years, River North has only increased its share an estimated 6%, and this is not enough for AB-InBev, which purhcased Anheuser Busch last year. As Milwaukeeworld noted in a previous post, AB-InBev is pursuing a strategy of consolidation and corporate-owned distributorships in order to secure cost efficiencies and to maximize profits and market share.
This puts a burden on the younger Jackson. As the Crain's article notes, "If Jackson, 38, doesn't pick up the pace, he could face pressure to sell."
He could easily move a couple hundred cases of Bud Light today by capitalizing on the White House Keg party, and getting out and selling some beer.
Yusef Jackson, This Bud's for You!