Those realities only compound the endangered-species status of the independent brewer. In 1980, following the death of its general manager, Hudepohl was already suffering after a string of "very tough" years. The board turned to a young and untested Bob Pohl to run the company. The great-grandson of founder Louis Hudepohl (the name similarity is a coincidence of marriage; Hudepohl had five daughters), Pohl had his own notions about how the company ought to change, following what he saw as a period of potentially disastrous complacency.
"The company felt insulated and protected because of so many years as a dominant brewer in Cincinnati," recalls Oberlag. "There was no feeling here that we had much to worry about."
Bob Pohl's concerns, however, were largely confirmed by an internal study of the company completed that year by a group of students from Harvard University Graduate School of Business Adminitration. The study found that among the problems facing Hudepohl was a monumental disparity between the resources national breweries had to spend for advertising and what Hudepohl could afford. Hudepohl had, in fact, already lost one of its most important advertising venues -- a longtime radio and television contract with the Cincinnati Reds baseball team -- to the deep pockets of Anheuser-Busch. That left the local "King of Bowling" television show as Hudepohl's most visible mediabuy.
"For every dollar I have to spend on advertising, Anheuser-Busch has $300," says Pohl. "They can literally blow us away."
Hudepohl is trying to counter by concentrating its special-events efforts in the Cincinnati area, where the company still sells 60% of its beer, claims to have about a 25% share of the local market -- and is under heavy siege. Coors, the enormously popular brew from Golden, Colo., entered the fray in Cincinnati earlier this year, and is expected to make substantial inroads in the local market, as it has in expansions throughout the country. Other new competitors have arrived in the form of several cut-rate brands from major brewers looking to capture the bargain-hunter. Says Pohl: "This market is in tremendous flux right now. I don't think anybody knows how it will all shake out."
Hudepohl is also using special events -- including an $11,000 sponsorship of a stop on the pro tennis tour -- to introduce Bob Pohl's personal project, a new "super premium" brand on which much of the company's future may well ride. Christian Moerlein beer, named for an old and now defunct Cincinnati brewery, is a full-bodied beer with a hefty price tag intended to compete with imported beers. Tennis, says Oberlag, delivers just the right prospective customer.
"The importers are into the same kind of events," she says. "They draw an admittedly upscale crowd. These are people who want to lie seen drinking Heineken or Beck's, which is exactly where we want to position Christian Moerlein."
The first American-made beer to pass Germany's 500-year-old purity standards, Christian Moerlein was brought out in Cincinnati in 1981. Hudepohl has since taken it into 25 states west of the Mississippi and is now looking at the eastern United States. In the first three months of distribution outside the Cincinnati area, Pohl says Christian Moerlein was already at 80% of its first year's sales projection.
Pohl's gamble with a "snob appeal" brand is substantial. He says Christian Moerlein is currently "eating up about half" of Hudepohl's sales and marketing resources. And while imported beers continue to be a growing category in this country, U.S. beermakers have seen their own super premiums sagging of late. Sales of Anheuser-Busch's Michelob are off and Miller Brewing Co. pulled its Special Reserve brand after a less-than-enthusiastic reception in test markets. Even so, Bob Pohl is convinced that the high end may be one of the last niches for a small, independent brewer.
"The beer analysts will tell you we don't have a chance," he says. "And if you look at the numbers, you'd have to agree. But logic tells you the big companies are more efficient than we are. In a price war, we're always going to lose. People don't know who we are. They're going to have to taste the product and form an opinion based on the product's merits. And that's a plus for us."
Lesa Ukman says special events provide just the right context for a company with a good product and a low profile. In addition, she says, "editorial mention" of the company's name in news reports of an event give the sponsor visibility that simply can't be matched dollar for dollar by conventional advertising. Ukman concedes that companies go into special events mainly on intuition. "It's still pretty much a visceral judgment," she says. But she estimates that, done correctly, an event sponsor can expect to get as much as 10 times the media exposure for its money as it would buying regular ad space and time.
Clearly, however, special events may not be for everybody, just as every even is not right for a potential sponsor. The choice of events open to sponsorship is enormous, including everything from jazz concerts and rock tours to triathlons, bike races, food festivals, marathons, minimarathons, almost-marathons, and a swarm of civic-boosting celebrations taking place in virtually every burg around the country. The events range in size from such nationally televised blockbusters as the New York City Marathon, to the sublime lunacies of Toad Suck Daze in Conway, Ark., where participants race babies as part of the program, or the Calamari Festiyal in Santa Cruz, Calif., where an orgy of squid cookery is capped by a screening of the movie 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.
No surprise, then, that Bob Pohl says Hudepohl has become "much more selective" in looking at sponsorship opportunities.
"Our name has to be prominent and we have to reach beer drinkers," he says.
Even then, Oberlag adds, Hudepohl has had to look before leaping. The company was recently approached to sponsor a powerboat regatta. They demurred when they realized a likely winner among the entrants was a boat named Miss Budweiser.
