Miller Shares Lessons Learned On Chill Launch

The saga of Miller Chill continues. In a speech to the National Beer Wholesalers Association, Miller’s CEO Tom Long outlined 6 lessons the brewer learned from the successful launch of Chill this summer. There’s no doubt that these lessons will be applied to future beer launches:

Lesson #1. Big, simple ideas rule. Miller Chill was launched to capitalize on the trends of premiumization, the growth of light beer and Latinization. And it had a simple clear positioning: “A new twist on refreshment.”

Lesson #2. Old strengthens new, and new strengthens old. Putting the Miller name on Chill communicated quality and light beer credentials to consumers. And Chill has had a halo effect on Miller Lite sales, Long said.

Lesson #3. New turf can and must be staked. Miller Chill’s refreshment proposition enables it to “play offense” against wine and spirits by attracting new consumers – including women – to beer. Therefore, Miller doesn’t plan to “dial down” attributes that make it appeal to women or an attractive summer time drink.

Instead, Miller plans to stake out that turf and “then build from those established strengths,” he said. “Our strategy is not to minimize those distinctive, winning characteristics because we want it to look and perform exactly like every beer out there.”

He added: “By the way, my understanding is that in the early days, there used to be the same seasonality concern about Corona. But you don’t hear much about that any more… because they’ve done a great job over the years of making sure their positioning translates across seasons, occasions and consumer groups.”

Lesson #4. The support must be as unique as the brand. While Miller Chill, out for seven months, has relatively low awareness, it has high rates of trial and adoption by people who are aware of it. So Miller is focusing on driving awareness.

“If we can optimally manage our marketing support of Chill, then we really are just scratching the surface of what’s possible with the brand,” he said.

Lesson #5. Speed energizes. Long recounted the nervousness he and other Miller executives felt upon making the high-stakes decision to accelerate the national roll out of Miller Chill. But once the decision was made, leadership felt energized – and that sentiment spread throughout the system, he said.

Said Long: “Speed is critical for us at Miller, and I believe that speed will become increasingly important to our entire industry… as the competitive game with wine and spirits will increasingly go to the swift.”

Lesson #6. The learning can never stop. While Miller Chill’s launch has been successful, Miller is keenly aware that it’s still early in the game. “We have huge conviction that it has great potential to be a game-changer,” said Long, “but we also know the brand will encounter many crossroads as it develops… and that we will need to be wise stewards as we make those decisions.”

October 3, 2007 | Filed Under Beer, Craft/Speciality, Domestic 

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One Response to “Miller Shares Lessons Learned On Chill Launch”

  1. sharee miller on April 8th, 2008 11:03 am

    [...] who is serving a…http://crime.about.com/b/2008/04/02/convicted-killer-sharee-miller-to-wed.htmMiller Shares Lessons Learned On Chill LaunchIn a speech to the National Beer Wholesalers Association, Miller??s CEO Tom Long outlined 6 lessons [...]

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