New Sebelgium Brewing Company Case

The New Belgium Brewing Company was founded in 1991 by Jeff Lebesch and his wife Kim Jordan. (Ferrell & Hartline, 2011) They started brewing craft beer in their basement and sharing with friends in their Colorado home. The company quickly grew and moved into a custom building in 1995. (Ferrell & Hartline, 2011) In the early days, the company’s main method of marketing was word of mouth from happy or satisfied customers. (Ferrell & Hartline, 2011) The company as of December 2013 had 456 employees. (www.newbelgium.com, 2014) The company became a 100% employee owned company at the end of 2012. Jeff Lebesch has retired from the company and his now ex-wife remains CEO, however she sold off her and her family’s controlling stake in the company to allow the 100% employee owned deal to go through. (www.denverpost.com, 2014) This is an effort to solidify the company and ward off larger companies wishing to purchase New Belgium. (www.denverpost.com, 2014) New Belgium is also planning to pursue an East coast presence by building a facility in Asheville, South Carolina. (www.newbelgium.com, 2014) The project is supposed to start producing beer …show more content…
While New Belgium has some beers that are year round, they try to keep it fresh by introducing season beers. They will need to continue to find new products to expand their market. Even New Belgium’s website cannot make it clear who their target consumer is. Not knowing that very important piece of information makes it very difficult to effectively market their products. This goes back to their original marketing campaign relying on word of mouth. In order for a company to grow, they will need to better define their target market. Once that is discovered and their presence has grown across the U.S., they need to implement a nationwide advertising campaign utilizing TV, magazines, social media,