Hello Kitty, Meet Beer

by Tannis Anstey

Hello Kitty Beer

I was on www.digg.com today, looking through the Entertainment “digged articles”, and came across “Hello Kitty Defines All of Beer-Kind“.  My gut reaction was “Hello Kitty & Beer…so off brand for either Hello Kitty and whatever beer company it is”.  Then I read the blog and saw the product image of Becks beer with Hello Kitty branding on it – my opinion started to change.

Now I have yet to see this in Canada, and based on one of the comments left I’m not even sure it’s in the USA yet either. But knowing that Hello Kitty has such a crazy following with “legal drinking age” girls (I believe mostly in Asia, but it certainly has spread across the globe) – this brand extension did not surprise me at all. Hello Kitty has built such a strong brand across many demos that they put it on anything and everything.  And while I’m quite certain the male Becks drinkers will not be pleased with this, Becks may actually get more women, and possibly younger (legal) women to drink their beer.  That being said, I would be interested to see how the introduction of the “girly beer” will affect the men who would normally buy the regular Becks. If this Hello Kitty Becks gets a lot of press, makes it into the North American stores, and is strongly adopted by the female demo…it’s entirely possible that Becks will lose it’s male demo. I can just see it now…a guy shows up to his buddy’s house to watch the game, with a case of Becks, sits down, cracks one open, then his buddy says “nice Becks, how come you didn’t go for the pink bottle with the kitty on it”.

Considering Becks (like many other beer companies) have built a very successful brand around the male demo…this is a bold, and possibly ‘fatal’ risk to take. Hello Kitty brand will not suffer at all…so we may see a “Hello Kitty 1 / Becks 0″ score for this venture.

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