|
(I wrote most of my comments before I read your response so it's kind of funny we both mention SATC.)
Girls are also drinking more than they used to, which could definitely skew the trend away from beer. Most of the girls I know either don't drink beer, or do but prefer mixed drinks.
I stopped drinking beer when I turned 21 because I liked mixed drinks more and they were easy to get once I stopped doing my drinking primarily at house parties. I'm gradually training myself to like beer again.
Don't reports also indicate that binge drinking is on the rise? Which, again, in my experience often involves mixed drinks and especially shots.
Right now our popular culture is definitely defined by the current name-dropping, materialistic, glamour-obsessed (or pseudo-glamour-obsessed) trend (see: Sex and the City, chick lit, etc.) and I just don't think beer fits in with that. It's not that "the beer at the end of the day has become a luxury." It's that when people think of treating themselves, they don't think "PBR" -- they think "cosmo."
You clearly don't agree, but alcoholic beverage choices (and especially alcoholic beverage marketing) have always been about image, and what people choose to project about themselves.
Beer needs to find a way to market itself as sexy in a way that does not involve scantily dressed twins mud-wrestling.
|