Not My Definition

I read a good article in the UK publication Marketing Week this morning.

It discusses some challenges facing the Stella Artois brand in the UK.

There are several interesting points, such as contradictory positioning of the brand as "premium" while selling it with discount offers, and the challenge of dealing with retailers who are unwilling position different brands differently.

But one thing in particular that struck me was this:

When it was introduced in the UK in the early 1970s, Stella grew slowly. Its real success came in the aspirational 1980s as more pubs in the Whitbread estate began stocking it and people warmed to its premium positioning. But introducing a 5.2% lager into a culture where people were used to knocking back four or five pints of much weaker beer, say 3.4%, appeared to contribute to drunkenness. Stella confused the term “premium” with being high strength. The new breed of “premium” lagers were blamed for creating an army of “lager louts”.

In short, the word "premium" evolved from meaning "worth the higher price" to "gets ya' drunk faster".

This wasn't entirely Stella's doing, but for a category that they essentially created in the UK, they didn't do enough to control its terminology. Of course, there's more to their troubles than language, but this certainly illustrates the importance of perception and definition.

When the concept of "premium" was changing, I wonder if Stella:
a.) Could have fought back with messaging like "Premium means more than just strength" (lots of fun ad ideas could fit that direction)

or

b.) Would have been better off abandoning the term and re-positioning themselves away from other "strong" competitors, creating a new category once again.

In case the link above doesn't work, you can find the full article here:
http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=59494&eid=167&ln=01