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Beyond The Local: Places, People, And Brands In New England Beer Marketing, Jeffrey S. Debies-Carl

Sociology Faculty Publications

Despite decades of domination by a few large companies, the American beer market has seen a dramatic resurgence of microbreweries. Contrary to conventional oligopolistic market theories, small firms have consistently gained market share from their entrenched competitors. Researchers have attributed this success to ‘neolocalism.’ Through their marketing, microbreweries appeal to consumers’ desire for connections to real people and distinctive products from local places. However, no study has verified whether this pattern is most characteristic of microbreweries. With newer firms threatening their market share, larger firms might adopt neolocal claims, but little empirical attention has been directed at large brewers, and …