Exploring place marketing by American microbreweries: neolocal expressions of ethnicity and race

The American craft brewing scene has exhibited continued growth over the past several decades fueled by the desire of many patrons to opt for unique, local brews in the place of homogenous national and international brands. Previous research reports that American microbreweries often express neolocalism in the marketing of their products: using local place names, people, events, landscape features, and icons on their labeling and in their names to establish roots with the local environment and culture. By way of qualitatively surveying 1564 microbrewery websites, this paper looks through a neolocal lens to examine microbrewery usage of ethnicity and race in their marketing efforts. Microbreweries are found to express ethnicity and race in their marketing schemes to a limited extent within which ethnicity, more so than race, is demonstrated. Specific examples include references to ethnic ties to the Scots-Irish in Appalachia, specific Native American tribes throughout the country, and Latino, specifically Mexican/Mexican-American, cultural heritage in the American southwest. In addition, findings reflect the demographics of the industry, which is dominated by whites of European descent.     

Beyond the local: places,people, and brands in New England beer marketing

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 mid-sized, regional firms have been largely ignored by researchers. This paper uses content analysis of beer packaging to investigate the nature of the appeals made to consumers. I find that while microbreweries do make neolocal claims, regional breweries are more likely to associate their products with places on a local scale. Large breweries make few such claims, but instead rely on “reflexive branding”: marketing that refers back to the brand itself rather than borrowing existing symbolism from people or places. These findings partly support the neolocal perspective, but also challenge our expectations of which firms use neolocal appeals the most.     

The local traveler: farming,food, and place in state and provincial tourism guides, 1993–2008

Over the past fifteen years, Americans and Canadians have become increasingly interested in and conscious of the sources of their food. Local food movements such as farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture have expanded dramatically in popularity. This study focuses on a heretofore unexamined aspect of this phenomenon, the widespread rise in use of local food and agriculture in tourism marketing. Nearly absent in 1993 promotions, “eating locally” is now a cornerstone of tourism advertising by states and provinces. This study examines the ways that local food is employed in tourism booklets, and by extension, the desires of the travelers to whom such booklets are targeted.     

Origine,développement et ancrage territorial des microbrasseries artisanales : le cas de l'Est-du-Québec

This article focuses on the development of a new industry, namely the brewing industry, in the peripheral region of Southeastern Quebec. Its objective is to understand and describe the main activities of the microbreweries and to detect their contribution to the development of Southeastern Quebec, namely the Lower-Saint-Lawrence and the Gaspé peninsula-Magdelen islands regions. The results of our analysis allow us to shed new light on the contribution of this industry to the development of these two regions.