Portfolio manager: Bryan Semkuley, v.p. marketing for Labatt U.S.A., rides herd on an ever-growing flock of imported specialty brands

Modern Brewery Age, July 21, 2003

Bryan Semkuley, vice president of marketing for Labatt U.S.A. is a Canadian, originally from Calgary. Semkuley worked for Labatt Canada for 15 years in sales and marketing roles, performing marketing tasks for nearly every Labatt Canada brand. He rose to become the regional marketing head for British Columbia, before transferring to Labatt U.S.A. in Norwalk, CT. He arrived at LUSA in early 1999, and took on assignment of managing the Canadian import business. In 2001, he moved to his current post.

MBA: Labatt U.S.A. has a large and complicated portfolio, and it's your job to manage it ...

Bryan Semkuley: We see our portfolio as full of opportunities. If we look at the consumer in the marketplace, there are different kinds of consumers, and different occasions for consumption. We would look at our portfolio in that context. Each one fulfills different occasion-based needs, different consumer-based needs. Ideally, we want to take each of our brands, and focus them on a limited number of those needs, so we can fill that great space that exists across the whole market with our individual brands. Diverse brands are going to exist in the marketplace whether they are part of our portfolio or not. So our opportunity to have them as a part of the LUSA portfolio gives us synergies and opportunities where the brands can build off each other, so the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

How does that work at the tactical level?

If we look at the wholesaler, it allows the wholesaler to have an organization like LUSA bringing them a range of imported specialty products. It allows us to create an opportunity for that wholesaler to bring to market a number of brands that satisfy different consumer needs. Those may be different by geography, they may be different by channel. Certain brands might have more relevance to Southern California, others in upstate New York or Florida. The flexibility of the portfolio is brought to bear by geographic and consumer opportunities.

On an internal level, as we've moved towards national TV and media for our brands, as they have grown and now afford that level of support. It allows us to bundle each of their budgets into a LUSA portfolio budget. It allows us to purchase media buys or properties that we can afford to utilize on a portfolio basis, and then reallocate to the individual brands. We have had opportunities that we wouldn't have, if we had just gone in with each of the individual brands.

How do you work with wholesalers to handle this range of brands?

We work with a wholesaler on bringing insights into his marketplace. These wholesalers are experts on the sales side, on managing their customer base. We try to bring them consumer insights as it relates to their market, gathered through tracking or market research. We try to identify for each wholesaler the brands that we think will perform best in their market. That may entail 4-5 brands that cover a broad array of segments, and afford him the best opportunities for growth.

Has wholesaler consolidation forced LUSA to fulfill more functions, like providing market intelligence?

As an organization, we pride ourselves on having a good understanding of the specialty import consumer. That expertise has allowed us to play a unique role in our wholesaler network. We can actually bring that knowledge and expertise and help wholesaler's apply that tactically to their in-market execution--whether that's through merchandising, on-premise development or community events.

When Labatt and FEMSA agreed to join their companies and create Labatt U.S.A. in the mid-1990s, it was with the intent of becoming "America's Specialty Beer Company." We wanted to be the leader in the specialty import category.

Each of those two companies had special knowledge, special talents, and different brands. We want to bring that knowledge and understanding of not just one brand for 1-2 segments, but a myriad of brands for a whole bunch of consumer segments, and occasions. We want to segment the entire beer marketplace with different price lines, consumer lines, and different channels.

Within the U.S., Labatt is still strongest in the northern tier, and FEMSA in the West/Southwest, correct?

It's a little more strategic than that. No doubt, the bulk of the Canadian business is still in the Great Lakes states, and the Mexican business is still strongest in California and the Mexican border states, through to Texas. As we've engaged our portfolio strategy, we've said we want to grow Labatt Blue and Tecate on a national basis. That means we need to grow those brands outside their traditional home markets. Portfolio management is helping us facilitate that. For example, the strength of the Labatt business in the east affords us the opportunity to get distribution for Tecate in accounts and chains where we have excellent relationships. The reverse is playing out in markets like Phoenix, where the leverage of Tecate facilitates Blue distribution and on-premise activity.

Are the chains integral to this sort of strategy?